School Committee Accepts Donated Athletic Funding

In what was literally an eleventh hour compromise, the Belmont School Committee late Monday night voted to accept privately-raised money to finance sports and activities that were cut due to the defeat of the Proposition 2 1/2 override a month earlier.

Under the plan that took four hours to cobble together, supporters of High School freshman sports – who packed the small meeting room at the Chenery Middle School – will meet with Belmont Athletic Director Jim Davis to discuss the funds required to sustain unfunded athletic programs.

The programs include freshman sports, middle school cross country and intramural sports.

Under the compromise, the freshman sports supporters – who have garnered nearly four hundred supporters to an online petition - will no longer be able to target the funds they raise for simply freshman sports but allow Davis to make budgetary decisions on priorities he deems appropriate.

In return, the School Committee will transfer $10,000 from a revolving sports account to Davis "to get the ball rolling," said Rittenburg.

Freshman sports supporters will soon meet with Davis who will tell the group how much money he will need by August 1 to support returning the eight sports whose freshman teams were cut when the override failed June 14.

Davis warned the group that due to the lateness of the effort and his decision to advice the Middlesex League that Belmont would not field freshman teams in four fall sports - football, field hockey and boys and girls soccer -  there is the likelihood the teams would not play complete seasons.

But supporters believe the groundswell of support they have received to protect these programs will allow freshman and other sports programs to survive.

"I see no problem working through Jim (Davis) on funding not just freshman but other sports," said Ellen Sullivan, one of the leaders of the effort to save the programs.

The final compromise came an hour after the committee stalemated, voting 3-3 on a motion by School Committee member Dan Scharfman to approve a more general measure that allowed the freshman supporters to specifically target their funds.

The stumbling block that stood in front of at least half the school committee members was the freshman sports supporters insistence the funds they had yet to raise could only go to that one budget item in the athletic budget.

"It was because the approach they had was confrontational," Rittenburg said.

"They were trying to bully us to accept their proposal rather than collaberate," she noted.

In the end, the freshman sports supporters agreed to sit down with a member of the school's leadership council – made up of school department leaders such as school principals, senior staff, teachers and school officials such as Davis – and allow Davis to select the sports and activities that are in the greatest funding need.

"Those now makes (the group) a collaborator with the schools because (Jim) Davis makes the final outcome," said Rittenburg.

Supporter note that while the compromise language does not specify freshman sports specifically, "it still is the number one priority for the athletic department," said Sullivan.

The vote, according to School Committee's Rittenburg, will "very likely" change the way athletics and other non-academic items are funded in the coming years.

"The reality is that in Belmont in 2010, athletics will be supported with fees and private funds," said Rittenburg, noting that this is the first time the school's have allowed workers salaries to be tied to outside funds and user fees.

Rittenburg said it is likely that this approach will see the percentage portion of athletics in future budgets to steadily decrease as private donations grow.

This "experiment" in which the schools will rely on private fundraising is part of a growing trend is not just exclusive to Belmont.

"The public is less and less willing to support funding for sports or libraries or a host of other non-academic functions," Rittenburg said.