Fees Up, But Not As Much

A new band fee and an increased bus fee will greet parents of elementary school students come September. The Norfolk School Committee voted 3-2 this week to approve a budget that includes a $150 band fee for students in fifth and sixth grade and a $135 bus fee for students who live within 2 miles of the school they attend. Fourth-graders can participate in band without the fee, so they can try it out without their parents having to make the extra investment. The new band fee is the first since 2003-2005, when parents paid $50 for their children to participate in band. It is expected to bring in about $15,000. The new $135 bus fee is a 50 percent increase. The bus fee is expected to bring in about $45,000. By state law, the school district has to provide transportation free of charge to all elementary students who live more than 2 miles from the school they attend. That includes most elementary students in Norfolk. But the school district can charge a fee to parents of students who live within 2 miles of their school in order to try to recover at least a portion of the costs of transporting children to school. Come September parents can also expect an increase in fees for prekinder­garten, which has in the past cost $250 a month regardless of the length of the program.

The new fees are $250 for the morning program (two days a week covering 7 1/hours), $275 for the afternoon program (two days a week covering 10 hours), and $300 for the four-days-a-week extended program (12 1/2 hours).

Each set of fees is less than what the School Committee initially approved June 2.

Parents heavily criticized the fee pro­posals at a packed School Committee meeting June 16, leading the School Com­mittee’s Budget Subcommittee to rejig­ger the proposals. The band fee drew the most fire, leading parents to wonder what would become of the program if many parents decided they couldn’t afford it.

The original band fee was to be $250 per child, instead of the $135 it ended up at. The Budget Subcommittee also took to heart the suggestion of a daughter of a parent that fourth-graders be exempted from the fee so as not to be discouraged from trying an instrument.

The originally approved bus fee was going to double to $180 per child, from $90 now, instead of the $135 a majority of the committee settled on.

The prekindergarten fees, which have been $250 per month for all three pro­grams regardless of the length of time, were originally going to remain at $250 for the morning program (two days, 7 1/2 hours per week) and to increase to $300 for the afternoon program (two days, 10 hours per week) and to $350 for the four-days-a-week extended session (12 1/2 hours per week).

The School Committee’s Budget Sub­committee met to reconsider the fee structure June 22, the same day a $1 million-plus operating budget override of Proposition 2 1/2 failed by a two-to-one margin at a special election. The town’s elementary schools were to receive a por­tion of the override. School Committee member Thomas Doyle, who is a member of the Budget Subcommittee, called implementing the new and increased fees “the last thing that we want to do,” but said it had to be done.

“There is a deficit that had to be dealt with and you have to address it in some manner. So we did try to do it in as re­sponsible and as sensitive a way as pos­sible in regards to everyone’s needs and the benefits of all these programs,” Doyle said.

Doyle, committee chairman Shawn Dooley, and Linda Andrews voted for the new fee structure during the committee meeting this past Wednesday.

Committee members Ross Gilleland and John Olivieri voted against it.

Gilleland pointed out that a minor­ity of parents pay the bus fee, contrary to what School Committee members were led to believe when they first approved it a couple of years ago.

“So in my perspective what these fees are doing is creating divisiveness within the community, at great risk, because the people who come to these meetings and who have spoken out against them are our biggest advocates. And I’m concerned that continuing on with fees both with re­spect to band and the busing is that we’re alienating our biggest supporters. And what I’ve heard is that the community supports the Norfolk public schools, and it should be supported and funded by the community as a whole, and we get what we’re willing to fund,” Gilleland said.

Gilleland said that the $30,000 the bus fee generated the first year amounted to only 0.33 percent of the elementary schools’ budget, and that the school dis­trict actually returned more money than that to the town’s general fund at the end of that school year. “But what that showed to me was we’re not balancing the budget with the fees. We’re talking less than 1 percent of the budget is coming in with these two proposed fees. And we’re creating a great angst in the community by doing this,” Gilleland said. “So I’m not in favor of either the bus fee or the band fee,” Gilleland said. Olivieri said the new band fee doesn’t make sense to him. “I just don’t see that we gain anything by trying to recover 15,000 bucks. It seems to me that we ought to have a fund set up and hit the industries and people … to see if we can raise some of that money, or mitigate it,” Ol­ivieri said. “John, I think that’s a great idea, but who’s going to do it?” Dooley said.

Dooley said he hasn’t gotten any response from a recent public request he made for parents and other residents to try to help raise money for school programs from private sources.

“I’m all in favor of it, John. The problem is, we have to have people step up. We have to have parents step up. Everyone talks about how important all these programs are, and they’re quick to worry about the fee. And we’re talking very small money. But these two fees generate $60,000. That’s an additional teacher. … If you guys want to make another $60,000 in cuts, over a $150 fee, which comes out to being less than a dollar a session in the band ...” Dooley said. Dooley also argued that a modest user fee is reasonable, considering what all taxpayers in Norfolk have to pay for school services that many don’t use. “I think we also owe a level of service and respect to the town and to the taxpayers of the town who don’t have children in the schools, or who have children in the schools but aren’t in the band, that we’re continuing to raise their taxes every single year … I think we have a level of respon­sibility to them as well,” Dooley said. Dooley noted that the budget proposed by Norfolk’s interim superintendent, Claire Jackson, calls for eliminating a teaching position. The previous superintendent, Don LeClerc, had called for elimi­nating a teacher because of a drop in enrollment, but Jackson’s bud­get also provides for eliminating an additional teacher, which will increase class size.

“Yeah, in a perfect world I wouldn’t charge any fees. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t cut a single teacher,” Dooley said.

Olivieri said he worries about the effect of a band fee.

“I don’t want to exclude peo­ple who might have some marvel­ous ideas,” Olivieri said. “But John, we still have a scholarship. Anyone that wants to participate in band and can’t afford the $150, you know, $15 a month, less than 4 bucks a week, anyone that can’t afford that can come to the superintendent, and the fee is waived,” Dooley said. “So we’re not excluding anyone. We’re trying to save teachers.”

Doyle noted that the super­intendent’s proposed budget includes cutting materials by $15,000, which he called “draco­nian.” He described user fees as ugly but necessary. “I hate fees. I wish there were no fees,” Doyle said. “… But the economic realities are what they are. I don’t like it. I don’t think at this point there is an alterna­tive.”

Jackson suggested that par­ents of students in the band might be able to raise money on their own from the program. King Philip parents already raise significantsums every year for the band program at the regional high school that serves Norfolk, Wrentham, and Plainville. “So there may be ways, once those people get organized. In every town that I’ve ever been in there’ve been groups that have been organized that supported the music… They raised all kinds of money,” Jackson said.

Andrews, who supported the fees, noted the “extremely diffi­cult financial times right now.” “This sounds harsh, but it’s not. Transportation is a luxury, it’s not a requirement. So to ask anybody to pay less than a dollar a day — if they’re going to drive their children, they’re going to pay more in gas,” Andrews said. As for the band fee, she said it’s unfortunate but better than further cutting the basics. “I know it’s difficult paying a band fee. It is something that’s offered outside of the school day,” Andrews said. “… The bottom line is we’re in a very difficulttime right now, and we need help. We need help balancing this budget.”