{"id":9886,"date":"2012-06-12T10:58:13","date_gmt":"2012-06-12T14:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=9886"},"modified":"2012-06-12T13:54:54","modified_gmt":"2012-06-12T17:54:54","slug":"schools-to-charge-non-profits-for-facility-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=9886","title":{"rendered":"Schools to charge non-profits for facility use"},"content":{"rendered":"

District seeking to recoup costs from URA, SCCSA, KAU among others, but debate over size of charge remains<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Non-profit groups such as the Unionville Recaretion Association, Southern Chester County Soccer Association and the KAU Little League will have to pay a facilities' use fee starting in 2012-13. How much that fee will be was a subject of discussion, Monday night.<\/p><\/div>\n

EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 The question is no longer if, but how much.<\/p>\n

The Unionville-Chadds Ford School District will begin charging non-profit groups that use school facilities starting with the 2012-13 school year. How much, though, remains in the hands of Superintendent of Schools Dr. John Sanville and the school administration, expected to be announced at next Monday\u2019s Board of Education meeting.<\/p>\n

Members of the board had fairly divergent views, although all agreed that local organizations such as the Unionville Recreation Association, Southern Chester County Soccer and KAU Little League need to pay something after years of essentially free use.\u00a0 URA and SCCSA have offered some in-kind contributions to defray the cost of their use of fields and gyms \u2014 most notably, a new scoreboard for Patton Middle School\u2019s gym by URA this past year \u2014 but school officials say it still doesn\u2019t cover the full cost to the district of having the programs at district schools.<\/p>\n

Based on numbers provided by Rick Hostetler, the district\u2019s director of buildings and grounds, the district incurs a cost of $6.50 per use by outside groups, about a total of $10,000 during the 2011-12 school year \u2014 over and above the cost to maintain the facilities for student use. But were those organizations be asked to pay for their total share of upkeep based on the total cost split by use ratio, the number would be $28 per use, he said.<\/p>\n

And it was that range that sparked a \u201cspirited\u201d discussion during Monday night\u2019s board Finance Committee meeting on what these groups should be charged to use school facilities. The debate became fierce enough that Sanville offered to build the rate schedule into the facility use policy \u2014 so the board could vote formally on the rates. Board members rejected that, saying the decision should remain in Sanville\u2019s hands \u2014 in part because, members said, the board unanimously supports the new policy, even if there are disagreements about the rate schedule.<\/p>\n

Finance chair Keith Knauss argued that the groups should pay the full $28 per use \u2014 suggesting that if the groups were getting about half the total use of the facilities, those groups should pay for half the use.<\/p>\n

Board member Victor Dupuis questioned whether that was fair or appropriate and questioned whether such a charge could lead to the programs moving elsewhere or even disbanding \u2014 and that it would be unfair to just charge groups that use the facilities most, rather than charging local residents who use the tennis courts or basketball courts.<\/p>\n

While most board members seemed to be in support of a charge around $6.50 and were reluctantly OK with the idea of adding a small fee \u2014 .65 for management and overhead costs \u2014 Knauss, Holly Manzone and Jeff Hellrung argued for a higher rate for the non-profit groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to make a profit off these groups,\u201d Manzone said. \u201cBut $6.50 is too low. We\u2019re at a point where we\u2019re talking about program cuts in education, so it\u2019s got to be reasonable…we\u2019re tightening the belt more than ever right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

But board members Dupuis, Jeff Leiser, Eileen Bushelow and Kathleen Do all expressed concerns about the impact on the programs that use the facility \u2014 and passing along additional costs to families could mean less kids participating in sports and other activities. Do said she had conversations with board members Frank Murphy and Gregg Lindner, who could not attend Monday\u2019s meeting, and said both were in support of the $7.15 fee. Leiser, Do and Dupuis argued for $6.50, although Dupuis and Do said they would reluctantly support the $7.15 fee.<\/p>\n

What Sanville decides could have a big impact on local sports organizations. If Sanville opts for the $7.15 charge, it would mean about a $5,000 annual charge to the URA \u2014 or about $5 per child enrolled. A $28 charge would amount to about $20,000, or $20 per year per child enrolled for the URA. While SCCSA has a lease deal for fields at Anson B. Nixon Park and KAU Little League is able to use facilities in the Kennett Consolidated School District, URA is largely limited to facilities within the school district and has, URA officials say, been forced to turn children away due to the lack of available playing fields.<\/p>\n

The only existing comparison within the district is URA, KAU & SCCSA\u2019s use of Pocopson Park, for which the groups are charged $10 per use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

District seeking to recoup costs from URA, SCCSA, KAU among others, but debate over size of charge remains By Mike McGann, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 The question is no longer if, but how much. The Unionville-Chadds Ford School District will begin charging non-profit groups that use school facilities starting with the 2012-13 school year. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[1466,1467,395,1465,116,1286],"class_list":["post-9886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-facility-use","tag-fees","tag-kau-little-league","tag-southern-chester-county-soccer-association","tag-unionville-recreation-association","tag-unionville-chadds-ford-school-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}