School Committee Raises Preschool Fee, Delays Vote on Bus Fees

The School Committee voted unanimously Thursday night to hike preschool fees by about 15 percent, from $2,800 to $3,200 a year to close a nearly $19,000 gap in bus funding.

"I thought these things were supposed to fund themselves," committee member Laurie Burzlaff said. "We're still funding these out of our general fund, so it's not funding itself."

The public preschool differs from the town's private preschool, committee member Stan Limpert later noted, in that half of the public preschool students are special education while the other half are typically-developing students. Parents of the typically-developing students pay the fee, which covers their children as well as the special education students.

There was not as much support for hiking bus fees, and the committee chose to delay so until more information and statistics could be gathered.

Right now, the bus fee is $330 with a $30 discount for parents who pay early. Under the increase recommended by Jim Mealey, the fee would be $330 without a discount and $360 if late.

"I think it's a hardship for a variety of families, there's no doubt about that," committee Chair Chris Allen said. But, she added, if the committee doesn't impose that hardship, they will be looking at a big gap in funds in an overall budget crisis that already has the schools short almost $100,000.

One issue that stood out was what to do about families with multiple children, for whom there is currently no fee cap.

"I'm just having a hard time looking at this and not seeing a discount for families," member Andrew McDevitt said. "If you have two or three kids, you're well into a grand. This is a very difficult pill to swallow.

So the committee will wait until May 17 to vote on the fee hike, so they can get more information on how many multi-child families use the bus system and what kind of impact a family cap would have on the transportation budget.

"If we have to chose, if we're going to support buses we have to take from somewhere else," Allen said.

The committee is asking for your input, so make sure to send them an email.

"We do want to hear from parents," Allen said. "If we don't get responses, we tend to assume it's not a hardship."