The Butler County Board of Education voted to reduce coaching supplements by 20 percent at Thursday’s meeting.

On Superintendent Darren Douthitt’s recommendation, the board approved the supplements be cut by 20 percent for the 2012-13 school year, rather than the 30 percent cut that was made in 2011-12 school year.

Coaches were encouraged to offset the cuts with fundraisers.

“I think I have been assured that if we go back to the table and reduce the supplements by 20 percent, we would be able to manage the supplements without a problem,” Douthitt said.

Board member Mickey Jones voiced his concern that many McKenzie School and Georgiana School coaches were not able to completely replace the 30 percent cut from the previous year due to a smaller school population.

Douthitt assured Jones that not every coach received 30 percent back last year, including coaches from GHS, and felt that there was not enough effort put forth from some coaches.

“Every year I have a meeting with athletic directors, principals and coaches, and I advised them to ramp up fundraising efforts,” Douthitt said. “I do believe there were a lot of coaches that put forth the effort from the time I told them

about the cut all the way until the end of the summer, but there were others that took a different approach to that opportunity and didn’t do any fundraising.”

Every coach in the county through fundraising efforts has the opportunity to replace the cut supplement every year, according to Douthitt.

“I think if there was a full-fledged effort then it wouldn’t have been a problem in most cases,” Douthitt said. “I do understand the idea about smaller populations that will have a smaller number tickets at the game. I understand that whole idea, but they had other opportunities to put the 30 percent back.”

At the meeting, Douthitt thanked his staff for assisting in the effort to help bring professional development speaker Stedman Graham to the Butler County School Institute on Monday.

As far as the fee and from where the money came from to pay Graham’s speaking fee, Douthitt chose not to comment.

“I had not heard anything until the last meeting,” Board of Education President Joe Lisenby said. “I had no idea what it cost to bring him here, and we as a board, do not get involved normally with instructional programming. I know that we have requested a full report and we will get it. A couple of the other board members have had some communications with constituents who were concerned about it, but that’s all I know at this point.”

In other business:

*The Board of Education work session, originally set for today, has been rescheduled for Aug. 25.