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Badin, Fenwick get financial boost from archdiocese

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Staff Report 9:28 PM Thursday, June 25, 2009

CINCINNATI — Two area Catholic high schools got a financial boost Thursday, June 25, from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.

Bishop Fenwick High School in Middletown and Stephen T. Badin High School in Hamilton each received a check for $59,375 from the Archdiocese to help needy students pay down debt or other extraordinary needs.

The Archdiocese handed a total of $950,000 to 16 area Catholic schools. The money came from the Archdiocese’s High School Equalization Fund, which is being phased out after this year.

“The good news is we got a check for around $59,000 and the bad news is the equalization program is ending,” said Dirk Allen, spokesman for Badin High School. “The fund has been of great benefit to all of the Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese who have received it over the years.

“We’ve known for sometime the fund was going to be phased out, and now we have to figure out to replace that money,” Allen said.

Started during the 1978-79 school year, parishes of the Archdiocese financially supported Catholic secondary education by each paying into the fund $100 for every parishioner attending a Catholic high school. The money was collected by the Archdiocese and distributed to the high schools.

The fund was phased out over three years, concluding with the 2008-09 school year. The $950,000 payment to the schools represents the final distribution that terminates the fund.

“We’re not sure how we are going to use it (the final payment),” said retiring Fenwick Principal Cathie Mulligan. “A couple of options are to use it for our debt service or for next year’s tuition break for our faculty’s children.”

Mulligan said Fenwick has traditionally used the money to give tuition breaks to the children of full-time employees who otherwise couldn’t afford it.

She said the school had factored the termination of the fund into its budgeting for the next year and that Fenwick would need to look at “ramping up” its sources of income.

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