School Committee Wants To Hear From You on Budget, Higher Sports Fees [POLL]

The School Committee asked the public Wednesday night for its opinion on whether sports playing fees should be raised by $50 per sport next year.

The committee will meet again in two weeks to vote on the budget, including the proposed hike in sports fees.

On the fees issue, committee chair Jacqueline Kinney said, “We need to hear from you. We are listening to what you have to say.”

Kinney announced that she opposes raising the fees.

The proposed fee hike was the only issue in the schools' proposed $27 million budget that drew any comments from the public. Only three members of the public spoke to oppose the hike. They argued that the proposed fee hike would keep some students from playing sports.

The proposed hike would raise the fees to $300 per child per sport. The fees would remain capped at $1,250 a year per family. The fees would be waived for those who cannot afford them.

Budget Director Ed Cronin told the committee that about 600 students would pay the fees to play sports. Another 200 qualify for no or reduced fees, he said.

The fee increase would generate an estimated $30,000 the athletic department says it needs because the current budget of $185,000 is not enough to cover the cost of running the sports programs.

Several years ago, the athletic department budget was cut by $50,000.

High School Principal Layne Millington told the committee that the real cost of running the athletic programs is $235,000. That means that $50,000 that was supposedly cut out of the budget five years ago was really absorbed into the operational budget.

But those funds, Millington said, are not guaranteed. If the total school budget has to be cut, that $50,000 will probably go first.

If he needed to make cuts, he would eliminate some away trips for teams because transportation is expensive. Home games might also have to be cut because of the cost of paying officials. And finally the school might have to cut out sports, probably starting with freshman athletics.

Since the funds were cut several years ago, four varsity sports have been added, Millington said. “We have been managing pretty well,” he said.