Marching Band, Golf Back on School Budget

The Hopatcong school district will fund the marching band and high school golf team in 2012-2013.

Both programs were inserted into the $34 million spending plan, which the school board  at Thursday's meeting at the . That was news to several board members after the meeting who thought the future of the programs would depend on separate votes.

Marching band and golf have been either fully or partially parent-funded since both were eliminated, along with a slew of other programs and 24.5 staff members, when the district lost $1.7 million in state and another $730,000 at the hands of the borough council after a failed public vote in 2010.

Superintendent Dr. Charles Maranzano said he was to blame for the miscommunication, which resulted in a pair of votes to reaffirm the program's budget standing Monday night.

Maranzano said talks with several school board members led him to believe the Board of Education wanted the programs back into the budget. So when Business Administrator Theresa Sierchio told him she found room for the extracurricular activities, he gave her the OK, Maranzano said.

Instead, the full board should have been consulted on the decision, Maranzano said.

"I don't think anybody on this board philosophically opposes a program that's good for kids," he said. "And I've laid low on this because of the fact I was a band director and I didn't want anybody to think I was favoring a specific program.

"If the communication was poor, don't beat each other up," he said later. "Your superintendent failed to communicate effectively."

Also clouding the program's future was that the state gave Hopatcong  for 2012-2013 in early March than it did in 2011-2012.

The vote to return the programs to the Board of Education payroll wasn't unanimous. Board members Delores Krowl and Michele Perrotti each expressed concerns that the school board wasn't told that the programs would be reinstated, said Lundin, who also said he told them he'd try to stave off a vote until the next meeting.

So did board member Frank Farruggia, who said that while he supported the marching band, he believed the funds would be better spent on trying to return a school resource officer to the high school or the reinstatement of the D.A.R.E. program, which the borough said it could no longer afford to fund.

Also, Sierchio should have been present for the vote, Farruggia said. Sierchio was on vacation.

Farruggia twice had motions to table the discussion of returning the programs to the budget until the next meeting fail.

"My vote isn't against the band," said Farruggia, who was the only "no" when each program was voted upon. "My vote is for a better use of the funds. And I feel that the band could be self-supporting going forward if they're serious about doing some fundraising."

School board member Joan Reilly said the approximately $15,000—$8,000 for the marching band; $7,000 for golf—allocated for the programs wouldn't "make a dent in getting back a resource officer or any of those things."

School board member Richard Lavery said he was frustrated that the marching band, which was two-thirds district-funded in 2011-2012 after being parent-funded in 2010-2011, was back up for vote.

He also said he believed golf, which has existed since 2010 off donations and fundraising, should return to the budget. Maranzano said the district would provide enough money to keep the program afloat.

"Why are we voting on this again?" he said. "Why is it that every time I turn around somebody is trying to eliminate the band program? We are voting on something when we haven't voted on all the other groups, and when the program has already been brought back."

Lundin said he also thought after passing the budget Thursday that it was understood that at least the marching band would return.

"When we introduced this year's budget," he said, "it was represented that we weren't going to be cutting any programs. My assumption based upon that representation from the business administrator was that that included the band program."

The fact the discussion was happening at all was an indication of the struggling economy, Lundin said.

"It is sad commentary that we are here fighting over $15,000," he said. "This is what the state and the budget caps and the budget cutbacks and the 2-percent cap and the totality of the circumstances has done to the economy. It's tough when we're scraping together every dime."

Hopatcong High School Band Parents Association President Tom Dougherty said he was relieved the program would receive district funds in 2012.

"Those programs aren't just programs," he said. "They're kids."

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