Ideas bubbling up on how to pay for school pool use

By Scott Merzbach
Staff Writer

Published on September 11, 2007

Money that would have been used to pay for an aquatics director for the leisure services department could instead go toward defraying the costs of the town's use of the middle school swimming pool.

This is one of the ideas being floated for finding additional money to meet the increased pool rental obligations, after school Superintendent Jere Hochman said the $30,000 paid last year by the town for use of the pool would not cover the school's costs for having the pool heated and opened during the fall and spring.

Town Manager Larry Shaffer told the Select Board Monday that he will be working with Linda Chalfant, director of leisure services, to come up with the solution, which could entail reallocating money already budgeted.

"I will work closely with the superintendent to see if we can come up with an arrangement that makes sense," Shaffer said.

The $30,000 payment is about equivalent to the money raised through fees paid by swimmers.

If not for the community use of the pool, Hochman said it would only need to be open for the high school's swim team competitions in the winter. But he added that the School Committee and school officials value the use of the pool by leisure services, as well as for swimming lessons and pool parties.

Shaffer said he agrees with Hochman's assessment that there are significant costs to keeping the pool open.

"We have come to the conclusion that there were certainly more costs with running the program than the school was being compensated for," Shaffer said.

In 2004, the town spent $20,000 for use of the pool, which this year has gone up to $30,000, even while the number of public swimming hours have been cut in half, Chalfant said.

"We did negotiate the $30,000 as a compromise," Chalfant said.

The middle school has also lost the Amherst Tritons Swim Team, which is now using a pool at University of Massachusetts, Chalfant said.

Board member Alisa Brewer said she would be comfortable with meeting the shortfall using the aquatics director salary.

Meanwhile, Select Board member Anne Awad wanted to know what efforts have been completed for private fundraising to help defray costs of using the pools. Chalfant said about $8,000 has been raised through events such as swim-a-thons since the initiative started in 2004.