Where is Our Money Going?
A question that has yet to be answered and is always asked among PHS juniors and seniors: Where does the money from parking pass fees go?
Normal day in the main parking lot
October 17, 2019
PHS parking passes are used to designate a certain number of parking spots for students, but not for all students, said Principal Mary Lyons. The passes manage the number of cars in the student parking lot. If everyone drove to school, there would not be enough parking for everyone.
The parking passes sell for $150 and were sold out within the week before school started, taking only two weeks to sell all 250 passes. With 284 students in the junior class and 270 in the senior class, that leaves many kids eligible to drive to school but unable to purchase a pass. A waitlist was started and passes are given when seniors graduate early and no longer need parking. There are currently 17 students on the waiting list.
When asked about where the money goes, a specific answer was not found. Lyons stated, “We do have to give it back to the Central Office and the money goes to offset student transportation[busses]”
Tony O’Connell , the school security coordinator, gave a similar comment but added that they are not 100% sure where the money goes, saying that there were many speculations that it goes somewhere other than Central Office. It was made clear that PHS does not see any revenue from the charges.
Lyons commented on the question of why the parking pass is so much more expensive than passes at other schools. “We don’t charge fees for anything else… there are some schools who have a ‘senior fee’, or they’ll have fees for sports. We don’t do that in Portsmouth.”
A junior here at PHS who paid the fee commented on the current parking situation. Sophia Noveska stated how she doesn’t like how not a lot of people know where the money goes, and that it is too expensive to begin with.
A transfer student, junior, Hannah Sexton, who is currently #17 on the waiting list for the parking pass gave insight on what she knows about the parking pass. She was very surprised to hear about the price of the pass, since Spaulding, her previous school, “had parking for only $10 a year to park at the entrance of the school, otherwise free”.
This question of where this estimated, $37,500 goes deserves to be answered.
