Hillsborough Township Public Schools has joined the growing number of school districts across the state and country that are charging fees for students to participate in co-curricular activities including athletics.

“The Board of Education recognizes the value of athletic competition and co-curricular activities outside the regular instructional program,” states a policy on the Hillsborough Public Schools’ website about its activity participation fee program.

“However, with reduced or limited revenue and increased expenses, the board must consider alternative revenue options to support these school-sponsored activities.”

The activity participation fees, which take effect beginning with the 2019-20 academic year, will generate in excess of $311,000 to help defray the district’s operating costs for school-sponsored activities, according to Michael Callahan, a district spokesman.

Callahan said the district's operating costs for school-sponsored activities were not readily available.

The Hillsborough Board of Education will conduct a public hearing and have a second reading of the district's policy during a regularly scheduled meeting at the Auten Road Intermediate School on Monday at 7:30 p.m.

Hillsborough's policy requires each student participating in a school-sponsored sport or co-curricular activity to pay an annual participation fee that ranges from $25 to $100 per activity or sport, depending on the activity, sport and grade level of the student.

The superintendent of schools and the board of education will approve the fee schedule each year. Students whose families qualify for free or reduced lunches are eligible for an activity fee waiver.

Practice not uncommon

School districts in approximately three dozen states, including New Jersey, currently impose similar student-activity fees, a practice that began in the 1970s and is most prevalent in the suburbs.

Several school districts in the MyCentralJersey.com coverage area, comparable in size to Hillsborough, including Bridgewater-Raritan, Westfield, Hunterdon Central Regional and South Brunswick, are among those who have implemented participation fees to help alleviate escalating costs associated with running co-curricular activities, especially athletics, where expenses for insurance, transportation, security, officials, field maintenance, reconditioning of equipment and uniforms continue to rise.

A statewide survey, the most recent of its kind, which the New Jersey School Boards Association conducted nine years ago, revealed nearly three dozen school districts in the state were then assessing activities fees, ranging in cost from $20 to $200. A less formal NJSBA survey conducted four years ago indicated the range in cost had not changed.

A nationwide survey, according to the NJSBA, reported in 2010 that 35 percent of schools across the country charged activity fees.

Opponents of the policy, who believe extracurricular activities are integral to a well-rounded academic experience, say charging such fees prevents students from attaining the free public education to which they are entitled.

They also claim charging a fee will decrease club or sport participation, a belief that the latest data from the National Federation of High School Associations contradicts. The NFHS announced last September that the number of participants in high school sports increased for the 29th consecutive year in 2017-18 with an all-time high of 7,980,886 student-athletes.

Critics of pay-to-participate fees also speculate parents of some athletes may demand their children be guaranteed playing time because they have paid for a spot on the team.

Thirteen years ago, East Brunswick became the first high school in Middlesex County to implement a pay-to-participate program, one in which students currently pay anywhere from $15 to $50, depending on the activity.

“At first I was against it,” former East Brunswick Athletics Director Frank Noppenberger, who is now the executive director of the Greater Middlesex Conference, said of the school district charging activity fees.

“Then I found out that it saves programs. It certainly saved programs at East Brunswick when I was there. I think it’s been successful. If it saves a program, then it’s a good idea.”

According to New Jersey’s Fiscal Year 2020 budget, state government pays 45.1 percent of education costs in New Jersey, while local property taxes pay 52.2 percent and the federal government makes up the remaining 2.7 percent. But those figures are for the state as a whole, not individual districts. Suburban districts receive a lesser percentage of state aid than urban districts.

When fractional increases in state funding fail to meet rising costs, or when school districts have their state aid cut, as did Hillsborough, school districts are forced to devise creative ways to balance the books.

Filling the gap

Four months ago, after voters in Hillsborough rejected an $8 million referendum to close a budget gap and fund a full-day kindergarten program, the school board approved a $130 million budget for the 2019-20 academic year.

The budget called for the elimination district-wide of more than 50 teaching, administration, clerk, staffing, and buildings and grounds positions.

The board made the cuts after deciding to not privatize custodial services, to maintain class sizes in kindergarten through second grade, to keep all world language and fine and performing arts programs and to not trim any sports programs.

For the school district to maintain 2018-19 staffing levels, the budget would have had to have been $135 million, Hillsborough Township Public Schools Superintendent Jorden Schiff previously told MyCentralJersey.com. But the school district, under the state cap law, Schiff said, could not raise the money to fund that level of spending, forcing Hillsborough Township Public Schools to trim its budget.

Adding to the district’s financial woes, Schiff said, was a drop in its surplus to an "unhealthy" $800,000. The state recommends a school district should maintain a surplus of 2 percent of its total budget, or $2.7 million.

State aid appears to be struggling to keep pace with swelling enrollments, especially in suburban school districts such as Hillsborough.

"We're a growing district and yet state aid is being taken away," Schiff previously told MyCentralJersey.com, adding the state "underfunds" his district by $1 million.

To also close its budget shortfall, the school board has eliminated courtesy busing for middle school students living two miles or less from Hillsborough Middle School and high school students living two-and-a-half miles or less from Hillsborough High School. Parents who wanted their children to be bused within those distances were asked to pay a $1,000 fee.

Despite spending $657 below the state per-student spending average, Hillsborough Public Schools, which educates more than 7,000 students district-wide, was rated among the 15 best school districts in New Jersey, according to niche.com’s latest rankings.

Hillsborough's best hope in avoiding another budget crisis in the future is a change in the state formula for public school funding, Schiff said.

Staff Writer Greg Tufaro: gtufaro@gannettnj.com