by Brian Keaney

The School Committee Budget Subcommittee concluded their meeting Wednesday with a discussion of the fee charged to student athletes.  They also received notice that state special education funding would be slashed by as much as 47% next year.

In March Superintendent June Doe said she would be proposing to the Subcommittee a plan to reduce the fee by 40% and to eliminate altogether the third fee for a three season athlete.  Earlier this month Doe instructed Athletic Director Tom Arria to put together such a plan, but no plan was presented to the Subcommittee on Wednesday.  

Business Manager Michael LaFrancesca said he was “very nervous” about any proposal to reduce or eliminate the fee.  He added that they were considering raising the fee for Middle School athletics from $50 to $75, but were looking at other options such as fundraising and advertising to avoid doing so.

In other budgetary matters, the state will be slashing the so-called circuit breaker funding it offers to offset extraordinary special education costs.  In the current fiscal year the state funded it at 72%.  The Department had budgeted for a reduction to 50% for the fiscal year that begins on July 1, but recently received word that it would likely only be funded between 38% and 42%. 

“That’s a huge gap,” said Superintendent June Doe. 

LaFrancesca said that since the Department had frozen spending earlier in the year that there would be some money left over when the books for the current year were closed, and that they would be attempting to apply that money to the shortfall.

In more sanguine news, LaFrancesca received a personal phone call from state officials overseeing the distribution of federal stimulus money.  Only half a dozen districts in the Commonwealth had put together grant applications that met all the requirements they were looking for, and Dedham was one of them.  That grant is worth $600,000.