Cloquet raises ticket costs to cover staffing expenses

In light of cuts to academic programs earlier this year to help with budget costs, Cloquet school board members said Monday that they were happy to vote in favor of increasing fees to help cover costs for additional coaching and theater staff.

At last month’s July 8 meeting, board members had approved adding five extracurricular positions to help cover teams heavy on student athletes but light on coaching. Board members then directed activities director Paul Riess to look into ways to raise additional revenue to help cover those additional positions.

The board approved two increases recommended by Riess, along with Cloquet High School principal Steve Battaglia and assistant principal Tim Prosen.

First, they raised the cost for single game ticket prices to $7 for adults and $5 for students.

“This brings us in line with all the schools we go to,” Battaglia said. “So we will raise the same amount of money when they come to us. It’s not an excessive increase, and it doesn’t take us to the top. It seems like a reasonable way to raise a few dollars.”

The second increase will raise prices for a season ticket, which covers every local game (except playoffs) all year long. For students the price will go from $40 to $50 for a season ticket, remain at $100 per season ticket for an adult, and go from $175 to $200 for a family pass.

The board also approved a proposal to hire an auditorium manager for the newly renovated high school auditorium — which has yet to be advertised — and raised high school theater ticket prices $1 each and rental costs for the auditorium from $50 to $75 an hour for a nonprofit event and $100 to $125 an hour for a for-profit event. The tech fee will go from $15 an hour to $50 an hour when applicable.

The staff report estimated the higher fees will raise an additional $3,900 to help cover the $6,000 pay for the new auditorium manager, which is similar to a coach’s stipend.

The new auditorium manager would manage the scheduling of events in the auditorium, act as a point of contact for any users, arrange training for internal and external users of soundboards and lightboards and manage that group of trained individuals, plus manage and monitor the equipment and maintenance of the facility. The manager would also recruit outside groups to perform in the auditorium for the community.

“If someone is just using one microphone and a light, we can preset and we don’t have to have a tech person onsite,” Battaglia said, noting that the manager will have the authority to decide who needs to have tech staff onsite. “We would never turn the whole soundboard over to a one-time random user.

“Not only will this aid efficiency, it’s also insurance on our $2 million investment,” he added.

Cloquet school superintendent Michael Cary said he was skeptical about the need for the position at first, but then he started thinking comparing the complexities of the auditorium with his own home entertainment system and realized only two people in his house can work it.

“What we just put in [the auditorium] is light years ahead of my entertainment system,” he said. “And I don’t want people just slapping at buttons.”

In other matters Monday, the board:

• Closed open enrollment for grades K, 1, 3, 4 and 7. Cary said they will wait on the other grades until about two weeks after school opens to determine whether the district should close all grades to open enrollment. Students moving into the district can still enroll, even after the district is closed to open enrollment.

• Accepted the retirement of Cloquet Middle School band director Jeff Cherne, who is retiring after 38 years of teaching bands in the Northland. CMS principal Tom Brenner said he’s already had five applications for the position, so he was confident he would be able to fill it quickly.