Read the entire article on the Wicked Local Walpole website:

Athletic fees next year at Walpole High School will be bumped up by $45 per student, per sport.

The School Committee last week approved the increase objections of one member who believes the toll is arbitrary and that parents are overburdened already with other fees.

With the increase, parents will pay $200 for their child to play a sport at the high school next year. If a student plays three or more sports, an individual cap has been put in place so they won’t pay more than $500 total in sport fees. A family cap has also been set at $1,000.

Those numbers are up from $155 per sport this year with a family cap of $775.

"(The increase) is ridiculously large, but it’s necessary to fund a program," said Jim Erker, who serves as the interim athletic director until July 1.

The fee boost, along with an increase in gate fees at football and basketball games and changes in how athletes are bused to games and scrimmages, should balance out a projected $60,000 deficit in the fiscal 2010 athletic budget, said Superintendent Lincoln Lynch.

"There’s a problem in the athletic …