A nonprofit that provides a music program and summer school and college prep classes wants the Monroe County school district to consider it a "vendor," making it eligible to receive district funding.

School Board member Duncan Mathewson said he wants the district to pay for half the utilities and other operating costs such as buses and teachers for the Collegiate Arts Magnet and Careers Program, which he created with Marathon resident Tina Belotti.

The program's name was changed this year from the Cultural American Music Program, and its parent organization is the Educational Coalition for Monroe County (ECMC), also created by Mathewson and Belotti.

"We want to establish more of a collaborative basis with the school district for ECMC to provide excellent programs as a vendor," Mathewson said. "It would establish the school district as a real cost-sharing partner. These are district kids, all in the same classrooms, and our summer program is an extension of the school year."

Under the plan that Mathewson is still finalizing, the coalition would provide arts credits, an environmental science course, and Scholastic Aptitude Test and American College Test prep courses. The coalition also wants to provide dual enrollment courses -- high school classes that provide college credits -- at Florida Keys Community College.

It would be the only nonprofit to receive such financial help from the district, according to School Board member and former ECMC bookkeeper John Dick. No other nonprofits provide credited courses, Mathewson argued.

"The school district didn't tell them to expand into all these different areas," Dick said Thursday. "What this appears to be is ECMC overextended itself and is now coming to the school district for a bailout. If we bail out one, we bail them all out."

Other nonprofits have mixed feelings about Mathewson's request.

Dan Dombroski, executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Keys Area Bayview Park, said it would be unfair for the district to help pay ECMC's expenses without offering the same help to other struggling nonprofits. The Boys & Girls Clubs provides after-school programs for children whose parents work in the evening and during the summer.

"We paid a total of $100 a day for electricity for the cafeteria at Glynn Archer Elementary School; that comes to $4,000 a summer," Dombroski said. "We also had to pay the school district $2,500 for school buses and had to hire a bus driver."

As ECMC and other nonprofits, Dombroski's group faces a cut in grants and thus matching funds. To pay the electric bill, Dombroski came up with a unique idea.

"We had to charge the parents an energy charge of $2 a week," he said. "We made it up with some of the parents but some couldn't pay."

The Monroe Youth Challenge Program's executive director, Sunny Booker, who also is the school district's Safe and Healthy Schools director, said she thinks ECMC should receive district money because it offers credited courses.

"I think the School Board should consider what the nonprofit is offering. Some nonprofits, like ECMC, are directly serving the school district's focus, academic achievement and providing dual enrollment and remediation credits," she said. "ECMC also provides performing arts credits. Others, while good for youth, aren't such a direct support."

While Monroe Youth Challenge receives no district money, it enjoys in-kind support. It receives bookkeeping help from the district's Finance Department and Booker has used the district's ConnectEd system, which automatically dials thousands of student and staff phone numbers to alert them of Challenge Program events. She also hires school employees to work in their off-time and uses part of her workday to organize her nonprofit's events.

Mathewson's program will use district teachers in some of the courses it offers, which makes it possible for the district to use full-time equivalent money to help pay for the teachers, Superintendent Joe Burke said.

"ECMC is unique in program offerings in the summer in which they pay staff," he said.

The School Board will meet Tuesday to discuss a proposed memorandum of understanding between the district and the coalition, but Mathewson said he may tweak it before the board discusses it.

jguerra@keysnews.com