ADAMS TWP — The fees collected last school year from students in the Mars School District equal more than a half mill in property tax revenue.

Jill Swaney, business manager at Mars, said the district netted about $130,000 in the 2011-12 school year, the first year students were charged fees. One mill in the district brings in $220,000.

A mill generates $1 in tax revenue for each $1,000 of a property’s assessed value.

Swaney said the new parking fee at the high school is $150 per student, and the school distributes about 200 passes per year.

Students also paid $100 each to play a school-sponsored sport, with no ceiling on the fees regardless of the number of students in a family who play sports. Swaney said the fee is waived for students who are eligible for free or reduced lunches.

The other fee charged is $100 for students in school activities that include outside competitions such as marching band.

When the school board voted in June 2011 to approve the fees, Superintendent William Pettigrew said he expected the new fees to raise $147,000 in the 2011-12 school year.

Pettigrew said Thursday that participation in sports and activities has not decreased since the fees were instituted.

Mars parent Jan Getsy paid $200 for her daughter and son to play one sport each. Getsy said the fees are exorbitant because families must also pay as members of each sport’s booster organization.

She said while some students who formerly played multiple sports may stick to just one because of the fees, she hasn’t heard of any specific students not joining a team.

“The parents just seem to suck it up,” Getsy said.

Getsy called the student parking fee “ridiculous,” and said many parents complain about it, too. She said because both of her children drove to school last year, she made them pay $75 each toward the fee.

“I told them, ‘It’s your privilege to drive to school. You could jump on the school bus,’” Getsy said.

She did not know of any families who avoided the fees by qualifying for free or reduced lunches.

Betsy Sicher’s son played two sports at the high school last year. She paid both fees without any consternation.

“I don’t mind paying,” Sicher said. “My kids are playing the sports. Why should everyone else in the school district pay?”

Regarding the student parking fee, Sicher said her three children will pay for their own pass if they choose to drive to the high school.

Steve Boggs, whose children graduated from Mars a few years ago, said charging such fees is just the beginning of what he predicts will be a growing trend.

“In the future, maybe school districts across the state will have locker fees, lab fees for science class and book fees,” Boggs said.

He said he knows parents whose children have given up their back-up sport as a result of the fee, and he worries about students whose families cannot afford to pay for activities like marching band.

“I’d hate to see some kid who can’t play in the band because he can’t pay the fee,” Boggs said.

He said his children received an excellent education at Mars, which he said is outstanding for its size because of its superb teachers.

Mars, as well as the majority of the school districts throughout Pennsylvania, have significant budget constraints as a result of previous cuts in state funding, an expensive mandate in retirement funding and increases in expenses such as health care.

Mars managed to hold the line on taxes for the new school year with the $38.8 million budget.