District to take fees for facilities

From Daily Local News:
District to take fees for facilities

Downingtown Area officials say charges will recoup costs
Monday, September 27, 2010

By ERIC S. SMITH, Staff Writer

WALLACE — Downingtown Area officials announced they will start enforcing their policy of collecting fees from outside groups using school district facilities.

The current policy states "the district reserves the right to determine the rental fee and impact schedules for each class of users requesting district facilities.

"In addition to these charges, the district reserves the right to charge for support services, including but not limited to custodial, cafeteria, stage crew, lighting assistance and the estimated additional cost of utilities, irrespective of the category of the user."

Community nonprofit groups likely will be affected the most. These organizations are the most frequent non-school organizations that use the district's indoor and outdoor facilities.

Richard Fazio, the district's chief financial officer, said the district plans to break even with the fees it charges.

"We're not looking to make money," Fazio said. "We are just looking to recoup our costs."

Fazio said the nonprofit groups account for more than 16,000 hours of facility use within the district. Nonprofit groups include

YMCAs, youth sports organization, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and other charity organizations.

The policy to charge these groups for using district facilities existed before this year's budget was crafted. But it was enacted after many of the affected organizations already had their budgets in place because, unlike public school districts, their fiscal years coincide with the calendar year. Therefore, Fazio said, the organizations "were not receptive to the fee."

On Wednesday night, the school board's finance committee agreed charging the fees would now be appropriate and Fazio may inform these organizations before they set their new budgets.

"The fee was already in the policy, but we just got caught up by the timing last year," said district Superintendent Lawrence Mussoline.

All of the committee members agreed fees are appropriate because the district incurs costs everytime it allows nonprofits to use its facilities. But committee Chairman William Fagan said this is a tough year to be imposing a new fee on nonprofits.

"It will be tough to get blood from a stone," Fagan said.

Fazio said the administration initially considered charging a fee because next year's spending plan will be difficult to balance with available revenues.

"This coming budget may be the most challenging budget in the history of education, at least in Pennsylvania," Fazio said. "We are looking everywhere on the expenditure side to see where we can reduce expenditures. But we also need to look at the revenue side."

Fazio said the state has set the Act 1 index at 1.4 percent for the next budget cycle, and that means school districts cannot increase taxes more than 1.4 percent without filing for certain exceptions or putting the the tax hike before the public in a referendum. The exceptions allow the minimum tax to increase by a few percentage points.

While all nonprofits must pay the fees, the Lionville Youth Association has an agreement with the district for field use that supercedes the district's fee policy. Therefore, it will not have to pay the new fees.

To contact staff writer Eric S. Smith, send an e-mail to esmith@dailylocal.com.