BY GRETCHEN KEISER

Staff Writer

ATLANTA--A committee of 10 people, representing Catholic school principals and parents, pastors and the archdiocese, has been given the task of implementing changes in the way Catholic schools are financed in the archdiocese.

The implementation committee was scheduled to meet for the first time Nov. 12 and work toward closure on Catholic school funding issues including school tuition, tuition assistance and parish assessments to support Catholic education.

The agenda will be to resolve issues in order to allow Catholic school administrators, pastors and the archdiocese to budget for the 1998-99 school year based upon new policy.

"We need to implement enough for the principals and school boards to prepare next year's budget," said Msgr. Peter Dora, vicar general.

The committee was formed after Msgr. Dora spoke at a meeting of representatives of Catholic schools Oct. 30, and thanked the group for their work in 1996-97 on the task.

"You have accomplished a tremendous amount. What you have done is remarkable," he said at the conclusion of a two-hour meeting of the group which represents most of the Catholic schools in the archdiocese.

Members have met as a group and have also brought information from and back to their school and parish communities over the last 12 months. The meetings began when the archdiocese proposed changes in Catholic school funding that included basing tuition on the per-child cost of a Catholic education, creating a tuition assistance fund, and establishing an assessment for Catholic education that applies to all but the smallest parishes in the archdiocese rather than only to parishes with children in Catholic schools.

Acknowledging that the process involves compromise among at least four constituencies--parents, pastors, principals and parishioners--Msgr. Dora said, "I think we can take what you have done and hand this over to an implementation group--being very honest, putting all the cards on the table--and make this work."

Earlier in the meeting, which was opened by Archbishop John F. Donoghue, Msgr. Dora summarized the key concepts in the ongoing discussion over Catholic school tuition and the financial contribution to be made by parents and by parishes to support Catholic schools.

Msgr. Dora was named vicar general in July and said that he has spent over half his time since on the schools issue, reading and learning about what has already occurred and meeting with various people involved in the process.

Among the principles he cited as having already been surfaced and clarified by the committee's work were:

• The demand for Catholic schools in the archdiocese far exceeds existing space in Catholic schools. The archdiocese is responding through the capital campaign, which will provide five new schools, and public support for the campaign shows that this direction has been endorsed by Catholics throughout the archdiocese.
• The principle of local control (subsidiarity), keeping as much control of individual Catholic schools at the local level as possible, has been identified as vital to the school constituency. This also includes recognizing the authority and responsibility of the school principal working with the local school board to set up the school budget although under various archdiocesan guidelines.
• The need to compute honestly the actual cost per child of a Catholic school education has been accepted. This cost may vary from school to school based upon its needs and its plans. The average amount is currently estimated at $3,155 in schools of the archdiocese excluding St. Anthony's/Our Lady of Lourdes. This figure does not include any capital replacement cost, an amount needed to plan for unavoidable major repairs such as a new roof. Under the new policy, capital replacement will be included in some way in each school's determination of its tuition structure.
• The need to provide tuition assistance for Catholic families who cannot meet the full cost of school tuition has been agreed upon. Funds will come from the capital campaign, from the assessment on parishes and possibly from a tuition surcharge.
• The need to phase in any new system so that its impact can be absorbed gradually has been identified.
• The present Catholic school system in the archdiocese already operates "in some sense" as a regional school system since most schools are already drawing a significant number of students from outside the home parish where the school is located and most schools are already budgeting independently of the host parish.
• The archdiocese as a whole, not just parishes with children in Catholic schools, need to be involved in financial support of the Catholic school system. Under one assessment proposal, all but the smallest parishes in the archdiocese would contribute to this support.
• There are four constituencies impacted by the effort to reconfigure funding of Catholic schools: pastors, school principals, parishioners as a whole and parents of children in Catholic schools. Catholic school principals have a vocation and the system that is established must recognize the rights of principals to fulfill their role.

The members of the implementation committee include pastors Father Greg Hartmayer, OFM Conv., of St. Philip Benizi, Jonesboro, and Father Jim Miceli, of St. Mary's, Rome; St. Pius X High School principal Donald Sasso and Immaculate Heart of Mary School principal Margo Wolke; Patrick Gunning, a parent with children at St. Jude School, Sandy Springs, a second parent not yet chosen, and Bill Maron, a financial adviser who also has children at St. Thomas More School, Decatur.

Msgr. Dora, Bertha Martin, Secretary for Education, and Mike McNamara, chief financial officer of the archdiocese, will staff the committee.