Peabody school board debates waiving fees

PEABODY – A local student’s request for a waiver of building and custodial rental fees was discussed at length during Tuesday night’s School Committee meeting.Fourteen year-old Andrew Brown and his father Tom plan to ride an 80-mile route in the Pan Mass Challenge in dedication of a young Peabody resident living with Leukemia. The Browns wish to raise money for the Jimmy Fund and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, but must raise at least $6,000 in order to participate.The Browns will host a fundraising event at the Higgins Middle School in April, featuring several performances by students from Peabody Veterans Memorial High School and St. John’s Prep, as well as the Higgins. To help cut costs, the father and son asked the School Committee to waive both the facility and custodial fees, totaling $300.Committee member Mike Moutsoulas had reservations about waiving fees, mainly because he feels the need to be consistent with his votes.”It comes at a cost to our schools,” said Moutsoulas, noting the hard fiscal times Peabody and many other school systems are facing. He encouraged groups to seek other outlets, such as Elks Clubs or the local A.O.H., who might be willing to waive fees.Dave McGeney, however, felt that the goal of the organization was worthy of a waiver.”The difficulty of approving this waiver is that it becomes more difficult to have a strong and definitive policy,” said Committee member Beverly Anne Griffin Dunne. “It’s for a wonderful cause, but take away the actual reason for the event, and the request is from a non-school group.”After much discussion between members that favored both sides of the issue, Mayor Michael Bonfanti and Superintendent Milton Burnett agreed to cover the custodial fees of $175, as they both knew the family personally.”It would be a personal check and that money would be used to pay for the custodial fees,” said Burnett. “There is no violation of school policy.”Burnett likened the donation as to that by anyone donating their own money for a cause they believed in.A bill from the school department would still go out to the Brown family, as is protocol, but Burnett and Bonfanti will cover the cost themselves.The request for the remaining $125 facility rental fee has been referred to legal council.