The May 6 date of the public hearing and vote to adopt the 2014–2015 Evesham School District budget draws closer, but not every finanical detail for the coming year is yet set in stone.
At the April 16 Evesham Board of Education meeting, the topic of debate turned toward the fee students must pay to participate in after-school clubs and activities.
Board member Dave Silver raised concerns about the current $95 flat rate fee Evesham students in both the elementary and middle schools must pay.
Silver said it was his belief that while the $95 rate was fair for the middle school students, the rate was too costly for elementary school students.
He said the middle schools offer a far more diverse range of activities and opportunities for students to participate in, while the elementary schools offer much fewer.
“There are so many amazing activities after school at the middle school, for the elementary school there’s a finite amount,” Silver said. “I think Dennis (Business Administrator Dennis Nettleton) will actually get more participation from the younger children if we had a two-tier structure where K through five was a little lower.”
Several board members expressed concerns whether the discussion to change the cost of the fee might also involve reverting back to one of the previously utilized systems where every activity had its own separate fee.
Board member Lisa Mansfield said she had received positive feedback about the effects of the flat-fee system from parents.
“What I’m seeing or hearing from parents at the middle school is that kids seem to be involving themselves because they’re paying that fee,” Mansfield said. “They’re involved just like at the high school, they’re involving themselves more diversely; they’re going out of their comfort range to try things that they might not necessarily try if they had to pay for it.”
Board member Nichole Stone said the idea of a two-tier system was great, but raised concerns regarding where the extra money would come from if a two-tier system was implemented. She wondered if that meant the fee for middle school students would then have to be raised, and if that would lower participation rates in those activities.
Board president Joseph Fisicaro said the details of the situation could be tricky.
“There are a couple scenarios here,” Fisicaro said. “If you decide at the elementary school to lower the rate, either you’re going to make it up at the middle school level, or you’re going to make it up on the tax levy.”
Ultimately, the board decided to send the fee discussion to the board finance committee, under the guidelines of looking at a two-tier structure that still involves flat rates.
The committee will meet and return its recommendations before the date of the public budget hearing and adoption vote.
Later in the meeting, board member Kevin Stone raised concerns about another financial matter regarding the fees paid to the district’s outside public relations and communications consultant.
Stone said he understood the district no longer had a public information officer, but said his own private business had utilized services that provide social media and other communications activities for a lower cost than what the district was paying.
“I had a problem with this last year, spending $30,000 on public relations,” Stone said.
Superintendent John Scavelli said the consultant being used did more than social media, including working with the schools, taking pictures, arranging media coverage, coordinating with local news outlets for different events and writing press releases.
“Those are all things that we used to have a person to be able to go out and do for us,” Scavelli said.
“Go out to the schools and take pictures, coordinate all these different things, and then for a few years we didn’t have that, and we just don’t have the additional staff to be able to assign people to do all those different things.”
The board eventually decided to send the issue of a public relations consultant to the finance committee to examine and make recommendations before the date of the public budget hearing and adoption vote.
