School to Give Hopatcong Golf Up to $4K

The golf team can breathe a bit easier.

The parent-funded program will receive between $3,000 and $4,000 from the district, Business Administrator Theresa Sierchio said at Monday night's Board of Education meeting at the . The funds will come from the Bobby DeRose Scholarship, given in recent years to a Hopatcong senior golfer.

But the money will be just a one-year stopgap, Sierchio said. "After that, I can't help you," she said, drawing polite laughter. Sierchio said each year a selected senior used to receive $5,000 to $10,000 from the scholarship, but the fund has had difficulty raising money recently wouldn't be able to provide the full amount.

Team parent Randy Sickles said he was happily surprised at the outcome. Sickles, standing beside his son, Shane, a senior golfer, asked the school board for about the same amount of money moments before Siercho's announcement.

The golf team costs about $8,000, which include's the coach's $4,000 stipend, to fund each year, Sickles said. The team had raised about $3,800 for the season off fundraisers, and hoped to raise another $1,000 with a Memorial Day fundraiser, Sickles said. The program had about 20 members last spring.

The team had saved a little bit of money from last year, when it survived off fundraisers and a $4,000 donation from the Lake Hopatcong Elks Lodge, Sickles said. When asked what would happen if the team didn't receive financial aid from the school board for the spring, Sickles said he was unsure. "Well, then we have to go fundraising somehow and we'll see what happens at that point," he said.

Losing programs such as the golf team was a direct result of Hopatcong's history of failed Board of Educaiton budget proposals, Superintendent Dr. Charles Maranzano said. Hopatcong's previous eight budget proposes have been defeated.

"This is a direct result of budgets not passing in Hopatcong for years and years and years," Maranzano said. "And it's finally affecting the programs. I just don't know how to emphasize enough, as the leader of this school district, how important it is to rally support for not only for the curriculum and not just the extracurricular activities in the community when it's time to vote on a budget. And if we have to continue to reduce the amount of money that's available to us, this is the impact it has. We don't want to take programs away from kids. So whatever you (Sickles) can do as we head into the spring, we'll be asking for your support.

Golf, field hockey and the marching band, alongside teachers, classes and other programs, were from Hopatcong's school budget before the 2010-2011 school year after a $1.7 million loss in state aid. The marching band was in June to the tune of more than $8,000.