I know these are hard times all over the world, but you would do a great favor to you and your organization by replacing the Cat5000 with Cat6500 (or Extreme/Foundry if you want non-Cisco options).
A L2-only Cat6500 with Sup1 and no switch fabric is not that expensive, you can buy a used one if you can upgrade it to newer software.
| Anybody know if Rapid STP will be supported on Cat5000?