School fees and Fall Town Meeting

Curt Brown has a post at his blog here about reducing school activity fees. The School Committee voted to cut the fees in half if the Town Meeting passes an article to fund the difference. The draft warrant article (Article R) can be found at this link in MS WORD format. My preference is for the town meeting to provide funds to eliminate the fees entirely. The difference is $57,000. The money could come departmental turn backs and would not be recurring revenue. However if the money is not available next year, then some of the fees can be reinstated.
In this economic climate, I think that it is important to reduce the stress on taxpayers, especially those with children, if we can. I believe that is the case this year. The transportation account alone returned $263,000. That amount would have been even higher, ...

... but the school department bought three vans to use to transport special needs children to off site locales. That purchase is a fiscally good move and I am not criticizing it, just pointing out that there was substantial remainder in that budget this year and some of that money can go to fee reduction this year. Next year the transportation contract is up for renewal and we will have to see what the cost are.
I am not sure what the rationale was to not go for eliminating the fees rather than cutting them in half. I guess the Town Meeting could pass $57,000 for halving the fees and $57,000 for their elimination, contingent upon the School Committee doing so.
What do you think?