Increased parking fees for Lowell High teachers is in the news again according to tonight's Lowell Sun ("Curb in schools' parking hike urged" by Rebecca Piro). Members of the Lowell School Committee are asking the city to waive the increased parking fees, at least for the rest of this fiscal year. As it stands now, the increase will cost the school department $150,000 in this fiscal year alone. That's money that was budgeted for other items (when the school budget was set last June, no one anticipated an increase in parking fees). Predictably, the city manager and Councilor Caulfield reacted negatively to this attempt to avoid further cuts in the school department budget. (If the $150,000 must be paid, it will be a cut in the school department budget since that money will have to be taken from something else - there's no way to increase the budget by that amount). Hopefully, a majority of the council will have a more reasonable response to this situation.