School Committee Waits to Reduce Sports Fees

The did not support member Joe Curran’s motion this week to accept the Athletic Advisory Committee’s recommendation to reduce the current family cap on sports fees to $1,200 from $1,600.

Chair of the Athletic Advisory Sub-Committee John Crowley presented on how the subcommittee determined that a $400 dollar reduction on the current family cap across the board was needed. School Committee mebers argued, though, that the presentation lacked sufficient information to move the motion forward.

Crowley told members that the sub-committee had fully researched the accounts, as well as examined other sports fees in neighboring towns, such as Westford, Waltham and Condord-Carlisle, and found that Arlington’s are the highest.

Crowley was also accompanied by a lawyer that validated the sub-committee's concern that the school administration was violating the state constitution by possibly violating Proposition 2 ½ , stating that fees seemed like unlawful taxes .

In particular he cited the Emerson College Vs. Boston, 391 Mass 415 case   that distinguished fees from taxes when they are “collected not to raise revenues but to compensate he entity providing the services for its expenses.”

In this case Crowley questioned if the district was using fees to fund other shortfalls in the budget. Although only Curren trusted the numbers as he worked with members and attested to their research and diligence, members state they needed more than a slideshow to approve a reduction.

“This is the first time we have seen this and there is nothing but this (slideshow) for me to agree with your logic,” Kirsi Allison-Ampe told Crowley.

Crowley accepted Allison-Ampe’s invite to sit down and review the numbers. Curren’s recommend motion to review the data and have a decision by March 1 so that they can move quickly on the issue was unanimously agreed upon by members. The $1,600 cap was to provide financial relief to parents that have protested them for several months now.