New Schools Special Revenue Account Approved By Finance

Money that the schools bring in from ticket sales at a football game go to the town’s general fund. Well it used to. Now, following a brief presentation by Stonington Board of Education chair Gail MacDonald at last week's Finance Board meeting, a new special revenue account will be the repository for those monies, dollars to be earmarked for school-specific projects.

According to the town’s finance director Maryanna Stevens, the account is “permissible.”

The Finance Board agreed that it was “a very good idea" and blessed the request.  So going forward the schools will be looking for creative ways to generate revenue beyond ticket sales to see deposited into that account. The idea is that the school district would have less “to ask taxpayers” for if it can start earning its own money.

One idea is advertising opportunities.

You’ve seen the ads on banners and scoreboards at sports stadiums and arenas, on TV during sports broadcasts. Soon the fields and gym at could feature ads, albeit not for some of the products one might find at the aforementioned–like alcohol.

And another might be to charge high school students a nominal fee for parking, for example.

“Now that we have this (account) we can start looking at things like that,” MacDonald said.