User fees help make up funds cut from budget

BY VINCENT TODARO
Staff Writer

SPOTSWOOD — User fees instituted by the Board of Education this year have enabled the purchase of $7,000 worth of library books.

Charged to groups that use district facilities, the fees caused a stir when they were first discussed last spring because they also applied to borough-sponsored or affiliated organizations. Pressure from the Borough Council prompted the Board of Education to only apply the fees to independent groups such as youth baseball and football leagues.

Board President Alan Bartlett said the fees are one way to help the school district make up some of the $300,000 cut by the Borough Council after voters rejected the school budget in April.

The fees have already brought rewards, Bartlett said, as the approximately $7,000 collected between July and the first week of September was used to buy library books for Memorial Middle School.

The new books represent 70 percent of the books that school officials initially sought to fund in the 2005-06 budget. The board eliminated that line item after the council ordered the cuts.

Bartlett said most of the books are new and were needed to augment the collection, while some were replacements.

The library, he said, is “desperately in need” of more books, especially due to the fact that the sixth grade was recently moved to the school. Memorial School is now home to grades six through eight. The sixth grade was previously educated at Appleby School, but was moved due to space constraints and crowding.

Bartlett said the $7,000 came from fees charged to a local soccer club, a theater group that used school facilities for a summer play, and other entities.

“The board decided to use all funds made through Sept. 1 for library books,” he said.

User fees collected from Sept. 2 through June 2006 will be used for a playground proposed at the G. Austin Schoenly School, he said. The estimated cost is at least $20,000 for the playground, and money is also being raised by a committee of parents.

The former playground at Schoenly, which educates students in pre-kindergarten through first grade, was removed a couple years ago when the school was expanded.

“We still have a long way to go,” Bartlett said in reference to raising the $20,000.

“We are trying to make sure every dime collected through user fees goes back into the budget,” Bartlett said.

When the fees were first announced, council members denounced the idea as a way for the board to get back at people who voted against the budget. The council also noted that the fees would in some cases be paid by the same people who pay school taxes.

The issue no longer appears to be a point of contention, since the district is only charging non-borough groups.

“If it’s just outside groups, then it’s a gain for the board,” said Councilman Curtis Stollen, who was among the officials to speak out on the issue in June. “The school board has to do what it needs to in order to get school taxes under control.”