Stoneham moves to ease budget problems

STONEHAM -- This town's budget woes, the most vivid recent example of local spending cutbacks, eased a little bit last night.

With dozens of high school athletes and parents looking on, the Stoneham Board of Selectmen voted 3 to 2 for an unpopular trash fee that could save some popular school programs -- high school sports among them -- that are threatened with elimination because of a tight budget.

The selectmen agreed to decide by July 31 how to spend the roughly $1.3 million that will be raised by the $200-per-household trash fee approved last night. A failed override last week created a $1.5 million deficit for the school budget and a $1.5 million deficit for the town. Even if all of the trash-fee money went to the schools, it would not be enough to stave off every cut.

"We have a lot of work that needs to be done. We're all hoping for the best," said Dustin Feldman, a basketball player who got more than two dozen friends to go to last night's meeting by advertising it on his Facebook page.

The Stoneham School Committee last week slashed the entire high school athletic program, eliminated art and music at the elementary and middle school levels, and ordered sixth-graders to head back to elementary school to save on middle-school operating costs.

The town's budget crisis was set in motion after Stoneham voters rejected a $3 million property tax override by 237 votes on June 19. Statewide, an estimated 33 communities have rejected overrides in the spring.

The Stoneham school cuts sent shockwaves through this community north of Boston and dominated discussion in town in recent days, talk of saving sports and rallying booster efforts as well as conversations about last-minute private school applications and potentially declining home values.

About 200 people attended last night's meeting, which was interrupted frequently by applause and jeers as officials wrestled with whether to impose the trash fees and how to divide the money. Scores of parents and students attended, many of them wearing school T-shirts. "I just think it would be absolutely absurd not to have sports. That's what keeps us going," Melissa Gregory, 17, cheerleading captain and senior class president, said in an interview at last night's meeting.

Paula Buono, mother of a high school and a middle school student, added: "The idea of a town having no sports -- I've never heard of something like that."

Jesse Haley, a 1989 Stoneham High graduate, started a savethespartans.com website and a companion page on MySpace to keep people informed. By yesterday afternoon, Haley's Save the Spartans MySpace page had attracted 235 friends and a long list of impassioned comments.

The selectmen discussed whether to split the $1.3 million from the trash fee evenly between the school and town budgets. But the selectmen voted 3 to 2 against a 50-50 split, to the applause of the crowd, which understood that it meant a larger share would go to the schools, potentially enough money to restore sports.

In all, the School Committee last week made 13 cuts and set a priority list for restoration, if money becomes available. The sports program, which relies on nearly $400,000 in tax dollars on top of gate receipts, concessions, and $250-an-athlete user fees, sits at number eight. The School Committee said about $1 million would be needed to restore the first eight cuts.

Parents and town officials wrestled last night with the prospect of pitting classroom education against sports and the school budget against the town budget. The town share of the deficit means vacancies at the strained police and fire departments are likely to go unfilled.

"I personally would pick public safety over athletics; my condolences to the people in the hall," Selectman R. Paul Rotondi said.

Parent Marisa Raczkowski protested.

"We've pecked away at the school system systematically. We won't do it anymore," she said, citing past slashes to after-school programs and swelling classroom sizes. "Start picking from another group, because the schools can't give up another thing."

The school board cuts would immediately eliminate the jobs of nearly 20 full-time employees, plus 54 coaches.

School Committee member Marie Christie applauded selectmen for "stepping up to the plate and supporting our schools" with the trash fee.

Christie urged the selectmen to decide quickly how much of the money will go to education , because the town will begin paying unemployment to laid off school employees July 1.