Salem is working on setting up a summer recreation program as an effort to take up some of the gap left by two of the local school districts decision to cancel summer school this year.
The idea was discussed at a recent Parks Board meeting and researched by the town administration, but the Parks Board wanted to know the opinion of the Town Board
“We don’t want to go any further if we don’t have the blessing of the Town Board,” said Jo Weidman, Parks Board chairman.
The Town Board gave its unanimous approval to proceeding with forming the program.
The town will contract with an outside company to organize and run the program on the town’s behalf, said town administrator Patrick Casey.
Preliminary plans call for a variety of athletic type programs that meet on various days of the week and for various numbers of weeks, with children grouped by ages, Casey said.
The town originally thought about using the Community Park, but decided due to weather concerns to seek out use of Salem School. Negotiations are under way with the school district administration to work out something other than the $8,000 fee that the school’s official policy would call for, Casey said.
Casey said the fees for the program are considerably higher than used to be charged by the school districts for summer school, but they were set to recover all costs of the program.
“We want to make it zero (cost to the town) because there’s enough on the taxpayer as it is,” Weidman said.
Though the school districts have students that do not live in the town, the town program will charge a 50 percent higher fee to out of Salem participants.
Fees in a preliminary schedule from $108 to $305 per three-week sessions.
Casey said the company that will run the rec program will be asked to consider giving preference to hiring local individuals.
