WEST WARWICK — There is a plan to repay the balance of the loan the school district provided to run the middle school sports program last year, said School Committee member James Williamson.

Fundraise, fundraise, fundraise.

“Fundraising will continue,” he said. “The goal is to create as much of nest egg as possible so if something goes awry and we have to remove from the budget again, we’ll have something to fall back on.”

At its meeting Tuesday, the School Committee was confronted by demonstrating parents and students who heard last week that middle school sports were off the board indefinitely. That news came as the district copes with a projected $4-million deficit and the probability of having to resort, again, to a Caruolo action to pry more money from the town this year. Supporters marched and rallied for the district to save the sports.

In response to the outcry, the board that night restored a $50,000 line item for the sports program in its $49.3–million budget, without any clear indication of where it would get the money.

“Right now,” said Michael R. Petrarca, schools director of administration, “we left the Financial Town Meeting $4 million apart from what we needed to run all programs versus revenue from the town and state. Middle school sports — along with any other activities we need, including mandated activities — how we’ll pay for those, I don’t know.”

The district paid the roughly $46,000 it cost to operate the sports program last year under the assumption that the money would be repaid, Petrarca said.

A group of parents, coaches, athletes and supporters gathered to help raise money to support the program last year, spearheaded by Williamson, and fellow School Committee member Bruce Vanasse.

Already, the group has repaid $25,000.

“If they don’t give [the district the balance],” Peteraca said, “that will remain on the books as a receivable [an outstanding debt]. I can’t absorb that. It will remain as a receivable until they get it paid off.”

The practice of spending money and being reimbursed for it later is normally reserved for instruments such as federal grants, said Petrarca, where the money is guaranteed. But the procedure has been used in other departments, said town Finance Director Malcolm Moore.

The Town Council recently authorized what amounts to a loan to the West Warwick Senior Center to cover the remaining cost of building a new center. Departments are also allowed to redistribute money from one account to the other within their budgets, said Moore.

The school board originally cut the middle school sports program last year in preparation for the Caruolo lawsuit that may go to court this month; the board is seeking an additional $1.1 million from the town for the fiscal year that ended June 30.

Last summer, Petrarca gave the committee a list of things that should be cut — things that were not mandated or contractual and could be potentially thrown out in the court case. Williamson said that at a School Committee meeting in July, he moved to make the necessary cuts, with the exception of middle school sports.

That exemption, Williamson said, may shield the district from any appearance of impropriety because even though the item was never formally stripped from the budget, the district acted as if it had been.

“If a program is not officially cut by a vote of the School Committee, I’ve got to believe that we have the ability to put it back in or take it out of the budget at our will,” Williamson said.

He says he knows he’s justifying the spending on a technicality and that if the district moves to use Caruolo again this year — as it is probable it will — the item, or the whole case, could be thrown out because of it. Weighing the benefits sports have for students, especially in middle school where dropout and discipline problems first appear, Williamson said he’s at peace with the decision.

“Is it a gamble? Yes,” he said. “But it’s one worth taking.”

tbuford@projo.com