School Committee Approves Athletic Fees

The Seekonk School Committee has approved fees for athletics and activities at the middle and high school levels as a way to compensate for a deficit in the FY’27 budget.

Along with some reductions, the total increase is 3.41 percent. At their April 8 meeting, the committee had approved a 3.95 percent increase.

The budget will be presented at the May 11 Town Meeting.

The school department had initially proposed a 4.61 percent increase over the previous fiscal year. Town officials are unwilling to allow for more than a 2.5 percent increase, noting town departments would be negatively impacted, including the Police and Fire departments, as well as the Department of Public Works.

“We’re going to do the best to give you a number that is viable,” Superintendent Rebecca Kidwell said Monday. “This is the first year you’ve had transportation fees, we told you how much we thought we could get and then we got a number. If there’s a discrepancy between those two, then we need to solve it within the budget that we already have. We’re not going to overestimate. We’re not going to recommend overcharging families. We’re going to try to guess a lump sum number, an educated guess.”

“Philosophically, I don’t want to be complicit with the Select Board anymore,” School Committee Chair Robert Gerardi noted. “I made it clear at that last joint meeting that I don’t want us to go to the town meeting and say ‘take money away from other departments.’ They’re just as needy and worthy as we are. But, fortunately for them, they’ve been treated fairly for the last three years and we have not.”

Gerardi believes the Select Board “has the ability to project revenue differently so it wouldn’t be taken away from other departments.”

“It stinks because the money is just not there,” said member Emily Field. “We’re in a really lousy situation right now. I also agree that we need to be funded higher to be successful. We can’t do it alone. There’s only so many meetings we can sit in and say ‘we need this’ until the town speaks and says ‘we want our schools funded a certain way.’”

Committee member Alicia MacManus expressed frustration with the Select Board for their refusal to allocate more money to the school department.

“I’m not comfortable in this role to just accept the 2.5 (percent),” said MacManus. “I think we give the town a chance to show up.”