001here. Jason Navs here. James Rosetti is absent. Also in attendance, Dr. Ken Sarinich, Amy Romano, Koutach. Okay. Can you please stand for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic stands, one nation under God, hope, justice for all. Okay. Can I have a motion to approve the agenda? I'll make that motion to approve the agenda. I'm seconding it. Yep. All in favor? I I um we're going to get into the agendum items. Okay. And that is what we were talking about previously. So it was pay pay to participate. Okay. Um I'm starting to get a better feel of what this is. And the bottom line is I think that we really have to listen to finance because I didn't realize what came in so
002far. So revenue is going to be very important to us and we need to know a solid number of what they need. However, they also have um you know the clubs, things of that nature that will substitute uh the differential. Do I know that? No, I don't know. That's we have to get better um better accounting to see if in fact clubs are paying for whatever they did. I heard stories this this one's playing 1500 extra 200. I it doesn't it doesn't even make any sense. I'm so uh the bottom line is um I I I believe that we really got to take a hard look at this through uh finance. Okay. Yeah. I I guess uh you know to add what you're saying is I mean you know we have to figure out we're
003trying to figure out where this number comes in for pay to play, right? I think I think it's a fall I think we're falling short, right? I I don't think you know the for you know I don't know how we figure out how much I mean we have an idea what we know we don't have an idea we know what it cost us to run athletics. The question is do the parents do we up this per per uh per player uh charge? The problem is we're falling short of of of money. So, I mean, we we I know we don't want to up the up the amount of for each family. I mean, we have those these hurdles of kids that are on free lunch and, you know, whatever the case may be. Um, but
004my question is, you know, my my what what I'm trying to say is that the play to pay that we're paying now is not covering what we need, right? And I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yep. And, you know, I just I'm trying to understand how can we how can we get there? Do you know but it's my understanding from last year they received $200,000. That is correct. Okay. They weren't in the shorts that we know about $250,000 plus subsidizing clubs. That's what I would assume. Nobody came to us today. We don't. So I think we really got to analyze these numbers and see where they're coming in and see if I guess some numbers are thrown here and they're saying it's 400 and I don't but did you say how much the whole program for? So
005dep the pay to participate fees it's based on if sports have officials or not. So a sport like football is $300 per participant, right? A sport like track and field where they don't have officials is $225 at the high school level. How do you come up with that? We didn't come up with that. And here that's that's been here since that's my question. So it was in here who came up with that that number was determined by John Niski and whomever he worked with at the time when it was done and I I and I'm going to refer to Kathy because I can't recall even though I was at SAS like how many years now we do pay to participate? You remember? Yeah, I know. I I started SAS in 2009 and I feel like
006it existed like shortly after that. So I feel like it's it's it's been 10 plus years we've been doing this. The important thing is I think I'm sorry. Oh yeah. 10 years ago. So can I just make a a statement just like a framing statement based on what you're talking about? I mean, athletics and the funding of athletics is no different than our entire board budget. I mean, we are being asked to produce results with the same dollar amount, whether that be the the academic results of our students or the athletic competitions, like the funding in these line items based on the money we receive from the city has not changed, you know, and and The amounts have to change. Well, but but the costs have risen or we're not receiving rising the the the
007money we are getting from the city is not reciprocating the rising costs. We're fighting for our whole budget to stay afloat. I I understand. So, so, so when you know when we're looking at we would like to support our athletic, you know, our athletic teams, we would love to to recognize more state championships and kids making acclimates. All of us would love to do that. We're attempting to do that on the same budget we've been running for more than five, six, seven years. That's why we have to, you know, the finance committee needs to get together um with athletics have to know, unless he knows these questions already, how much are they bringing in for this club? How much are they bringing in? Right. Ju to add to what you're saying and I totally agree
008with you. It's it's a it's a pro, you know, we're we're we're for lack of a better word, we're dancing around the budget just like we do in education, whatever. Totally agree with you. Stealing from Peter to pay Paul to to give athletics more money is just going to be at the detriment of somewhere else. Correct. I get it. So that's why that's why it goes in handinand with with with our our uh the letter B on the agenda. second second part of the for for the for booster clubs, right? So, with that being said, I we got a couple coaches in here and you know, I think that there's there's a little bit of a disconnect uh between uh you know, the board uh finance and the booster clubs, right? I think we need
009to uh you know kind of collaborate amongst all of us, right? And and figure out where because the lack of funding we have, we have good community here. We know that we have good parents. We have all that. We just need to be where do we need to be? We all have to kind of work together left-hand, right hand, whatever it's going to take. But that's that's why we're here today to figure out how can we create a structure for the booster club booster clubs and, you know, how can we create, you know, a kind of platform layout, whatever format, whatever we do, so we can just car carry over season by season kind of help offset cost that Scott and the coaches deal with, right? Scott when you I know you shook your head
010about you don't want to raise cost I know so are you struggling we'd love to know obviously that it came back out of here are you at all of kids not saying yeah yes and I have some numbers to to kind of yeah sure give them to us you know I can I'm just going to read you a couple so not every team is the same because we have cuts for certain teams so if a 00 kids try out for soccer, we can't keep that many. You can't play that many. So, we have to we have to cut the numbers down. What I don't have is how many tried out for every sport, right? But the the the the the sports that are always the tell like to let us know if more or less
011are joining are the sports like track and swimming where as long as you're willing to work hard and show up every day, you've got a place, right? You don't have to be um a sport specific athlete to be good at track. You can show up, work hard, and earn your spot. And that's where we see a lot of the a lot of those kids that aren't football players, they aren't baseball players, right? They end up in in a sport like that. And from last year to this year, boys outdoor track went from 85 last year to 67 this year. Girls outdoor track went from 69 last year to 50 this year. Um, boys swim. Let me find it here. Where are we? Girls swim stayed about about the same. Um, I know that boys swim
012and I have it here. I just need a minute to find it, but it went down significantly. 17 is eight this year. We Right. We have eight this year that played or that participated in swim. Swim is one of those sports that a lot of kids come to high school, they don't even know we have the team, right? They they think they want to try out for basketball. We get a lot of kids that try out for basketball, right? They don't make it. One of the things we offer to them is why don't you try swim, right? Coach Allen will tell you he's advocating for them to do that all the time. The pay to participate fees get in the way of that. Right? So students that might be willing to try and do something
013they've never done before, you know, it's like, oh, and I have to pay to do that. Like I don't know if I want to do that. So we see the same thing with wrestling. The numbers have gone down. Um, we had 50 last year, we have 41 this year. You know, a significant drop. No, but it's but it's a drop. And I will tell you that raising pay to participate makes me uh even more uncomfortable because to date this year, we've had we had 12 students that came and spoke to me and told me like, I we I just can't afford it. I don't know what to do, but I really want to participate in a sport. And we try our best to work with them. we offer them like you know what if you
014paid on a payment plan what if what if you only paid half of it and we tried to kick in for the rest of it. So that number combined out of those 12 students we've contributed $1,825 for students that just couldn't pay for it on their own. So, and and we've been able to do that because years ago when pay to participate first was initiated, there was an out there was a bit of an outcry within the community where uh local businesses didn't like that. They didn't like that we were doing that and they started sending money into the school to be reserved into an account for students that couldn't pay for it. So, we're on the very end of the of of that money in that account, right? So, and there are no there's
015nobody calling anymore to say, "Hey, can I you know, do you have students that can't pay to participate? Anybody that I can help out?" We just it just doesn't happen. And you know, those 12 students are the students that were brave enough to come and tell me, right? The rest just don't show up at all. They just don't sign up or they sign up for a couple of weeks and then they mysteriously just stop arriving. I I I just want to understand one thing. Um, your whole program you're saying wherever the money is coming from cost you 400 and something. No, no, you could be Oh. Uh, no. No. That was I think you're referring to um Oh, I think you're referring to this my budget request, right? Yeah. Right. Well, when you say whole
016program though, this this budget budget request doesn't include like coaching stipens or anything like that. This is just the like the line items that I need to spend to keep athletics moving. Right. the the cost basically Anthony. Yeah. And it and it's somewhere in 3.95 385. Right. I just wanted to make sure we weren't including coaches in that but you're able to I'm saying right now you think with the money coming into play to pay and all of the clubs are you going to have the money to um so I I need a little more clarification what you mean about clubs. I'm not sure what clubs. He's talking about the booster clubs. No, he he doesn't handle any of that money. Okay. Yeah. That doesn't come to athletics at So, booster clubs are typically reserved
017for doing things extra for the team. So, they pay for banquetss, they pay for trophies, they pay for student apparel. They um they don't typically buy equipment or pay for referees or anything like that. Do we know band and drama pay? I think so. Yes. Does that money go to you or your No, that I don't I don't collect fees for them at all. Sure. Obviously. divided by x amount of dollars by whatever that is. That is No, because the number because it's not a it's not standard across the board. No, it's not. But I feel like not That's right. So, you know, we should still be setting I'm saying well to to your point, I just like to kind of How could course think that's Like anything like Jason run a business. I run
018a business. Oh, you need I don't know. I need to drive. Well, there's a baseline. Yeah. Sure. I I do. How do we I think I instead of instead of um just labeling how many students I I think that I think No, I know what you mean. I know what you mean. Um the last couple of years that we've had the $250,000 supplemented by the city, we've spent all of it and there's been plenty left that I really could have and needed to buy. But but but that's the point that I was going to try to make and if I could just come back. Yeah. So, when we lived in the world of the city just gave us $250,000, it was an easier way for us to budget and manage our athletic program. And I
019and I I don't mean to speak for Scott, but I see shaking his head%. See, now we live in this world where, you know, Scott thinks I hope I get to 250. I'm going to plan on getting on 250. But then the reality is, as I just shared you the number, if we've only collected 181 so far, like Scott's like, "Okay, I gotta I gotta preload Arbiter. I'm gonna have refs to pay." He's talking to Jackie. Jackie's like, "Well, well, we don't have that money yet. We don't have that money." So now we're stealing money from another section of the budget, causing a deficit in somewhere else so he can pay Arbiter and crossing our fingers and saying, "Let's hope the kids come in so we can pay ourselves back cuz we don't want to
020run a deficit. We know 181,000 came in. Now as far as uh what they have collected on fundraising know what that 181,000 is only paid to participate in that are including the spring sports. Now we have we also in the same and I don't have it with me right now but in the revenue report that the board gets at every finance meeting also talks about ticket revenue that's reported out too. We have the ticket revenue but is that going towards that level? Yeah. So yeah, as of now it it is we had to use it because we're that's what I'm saying. We're in the past that money has been used at the discretion of the school in other areas. Now now we're now we're taking that money and we're supplementing the athletic program because we're
021not getting the money and pay to participate. And I don't mean that we should just be charging the students to make more money. I'm saying that's the only revenue source we have to help fund the athletic program. It's got to be a budget based on a budget and it's and it's very difficult to base a budget on an unknown factor. You're saying even even and and I understand where where Mrs. Romano is going with if we knew the X number of athletes, but even that variable if we said 500 athletes will equal this dollar amount. It goes back to my original statement of there's a family cap. Okay. There's also kids who run free lunch. So how do you and we don't know those variables. We don't we don't know ahead of time how many
022sports, you know, one family is going to have and how many members in that family are going to play sports and what that's going to be capped out at. So, Dr. Ken, what I'm saying is that we'd know those numbers closer if they were, you know, given to us. In other words, they're sorry the budget. You're saying, "Yes, we don't know exactly what the expenses are, but same thing with the school budget." Correct. So, so Scott meets with us and he presents like all department heads, like all principles, this is what I would like for my program. But just like every principal out there, we say, "Okay, this is what you want. I want to support that and this is the reality of what we're going to get from the city." Like although Scott will
023give us a list and say and and I want to support that list, I can't say, "Well, Scott, you're going to get all your money, Kathy, I'm gonna cut X number of dollars from the high school, you know, instructional because I have to fund athletics." I mean that's that's the reality of the situation that you know we we would have to deal with in that world if we say and we make a commitment okay Scott gave us a number for athletics and we have to fund that number I mean that's financial brought in okay that was so high school high school high school spring sports were due April 11th on On April 11th, we had 180 athletes that hadn't paid yet. So, so that number should be increased. Well, 100. Well, that was on April
02411th. Today, to date, I think we have about 20 that haven't paid. Correct. And in spring, most kids are already capped out. Yeah. Cuz you remember the process here is the family is told, they're just told that your your child is playing a sport, you have to pay this dollar amount. They rectify that with accounts payable. That's by federal law. We only have two individuals in the whole district. I don't even have that information. Who knows the free and reduced lunch list? And they would go to them and say, "Hey, I got this bill." And they would rectify and say, "Oh, you're on free lunch." Like type thing. So, we we don't even know. Do we have accountabil? Do we have accountability for all the other funds they bring in for athletes? Is there something
025that tells you in other words we let's say 180,000 other than gate receipts and pay to participate. There are no other funding sources for athletics. Well, they do fundraising fundraising that we're going to fundraising for fundraising is is a club is raising money for themselves. They're not an entity of the school outside of Scott. Look here, I got I'll show you something. doesn't look like it. But the problem is yeah, you you know the pay to the pay to participate for me is you know parents think hey you know what I'm paying I you know we deserve this and we deserve that. The problem is it's not enough. It's not as it's not even enough to run what we need. So that's that's the problem when you know when these I mean listen I'm a
026parent. I know giving out 300 bucks well I should get everything we need. Doesn't work that way. People are just uninformed of what it costs to operate. If I was given a choice to say we can charge every athlete pay to participate or the city can give us a flat rate of 250,000, I take the 250,000 before pay to participate. That Yeah. Then we can properly budget and we know what we're working with, right? At least I at least I know where I'm at. Yep. But that doesn't go you said towards I get more Okay, I'll show you that. Okay. I Are you When you talk about those tracks, are you referring to like championship meets? So, like league, state, regular. Okay. So, yeah. No, I you're and you're right. Yep. The the the Floyd
027Athletic Fieldhouse is high in demand. they pretty much can charge whatever they want and they do um because it's an indoor it's the it's one of two indoor facilities in the state that can do what they do. Um so New Haven's a little bit of a different animal. I I will tell you that when we went from $5 to $6, there was an enormous amount of push back. Understood. It's like Better right. Yes. Ah. Sure. I understand. Did you hear both? You're going to have to both both you have to see in them. Right. So, we've been Right. So, we've been fully digital on ticket sales since December, right? So, everything goes everything goes through Goof Fan. We don't do any cash tickets. We had a combination of those for the fall, but ever since
028the winter season started, we've been all digital since then. So, hour something. Yes. Sure. How are we doing with the seniors in terms of the technology on, you know, on the phones? Are they are they grasping it? No, they hate it. Exactly. So, how are we handling that? Well, so fortunately for us, we have a lot of retired teachers that do our ticket sales. Um, so the same age demographic, right? So, a lot of them certainly can relate and now that we have now that we have the system that we have um with the iPad and the card reader, they they quite literally tell them like just give me your credit card, I will do it for you. Okay. Right. And they and they do it for them. Um I mean that's that's the reality
029of it, right? To tell have them scan a barcode and log in and all that that's not happen. Luckily, we have the volunteers to do that, right? They will. They will. Well, the ticket sellers aren't volunteers. They pay them. Oh, they pay them. Okay. Okay. We pay them. Yeah. I'm sorry. You're right. You did tell me that. Mhm. Ask Jackie. Look, we're not She's not going to know that's something finance. So, how much would it be? So Scott, we realize what you It it would correct. Correct. We also offer a family pass for adults. Right. So, right. Football games certainly draw the biggest crowd. They also they also cost the most to run. So, we have five or six police officers at every one of those. We have we are required to have ambulances at
030every home football game. We have 15 per year and that's and that's not including playoffs and an ambulance is roughly $500 to $600 every single time you have them there. So that's a big cost. The police officers at varsity games cost depending on which officers are working cost anywhere between like $16 and $2,400 for the day for them to be there. We have to pay we have to pay the workers. We have to pay the site supervisors. um it's it's costly to host a football game and we don't get the same crowds that we get at the sub varsity and I will give an example of what happens when with with all budget presentations and departments. Scott has advocated since he's been in his position that we need to raise the salaries for ticket takers
031and site supervisors because he's not getting the number of people to come out and we recognize that as a need but we've denied that in terms of the budget cuz we don't have the money to raise that that that value to for those people. What what are we paying now? So a ticket seller is there for approximately 3 and 12 to four hours. We pay them $40 to to do that. Whereas a site supervisor, so they are responsible for the whole thing. We pay them 60. How about if we utilize I'm just asking Sure. who are let's say there's 10 of them that can't afford it and we put them in those have to pay them. I mean, is that a consideration? Um, so somebody that you mean somebody that can't afford to pay to
032participate? Yes. I I mean it's it's certainly an option. I would I would imagine I don't like 99% of the time I don't get I don't have contact. So we can't ask somebody if they can't afford it would only have to be somebody who may say brings that to me. I need assistance and then we can offer them and say hey you can work here and make money but we can't we don't get a list and we can't say hey you're you're getting you know so you need to I think it's actually I think it's actually not a bad idea but I mean like to your point you have to that has to come across your right somebody's got to be confident enough to come forward with that and then and just it's a great
033idea and it's a possibility but also know that they would then be employees or employed by the school district so they have to go through the employee vetting process. We'd have to have them fingerprinted. We have to have all that stuff. So, you know, I'm just saying and I don't know what happened when we brought in the money from, you know, from outside, but if we wanted to do something outreach, you know, for Yeah. for sponsorships or something, we'd have to do that. I didn't remember it happening. Yeah, I remember it happening, too. But I was like, how did we legally bring it in? Well, just with our whole fund raise, it's technically fundraising. Dr. Kent, I wasn't I was Yeah, it was just donation. Or you think it's just considered a donation? And not
034for them to help. No, no, I understand that. Okay. Cuz you're saying, well, we don't know who paid and who didn't pay. You understand that? So, like what happens when a team is formed? A coach selects these 50 players for his or her team. That list of 50 players goes to accounts payable and say these this is the new team. So only the members of accounts payable are going to know who didn't have to pay or who paid. And the coach has never told that otherwise. It's just it's 50 players or 50 players. Scott. I do not. He's not allowed to. That's what I'm saying. That's that's confidential information that we're not privy to. Going back to donation, if we did something that said, you know, through social media and said, you know, you know,
035a donation link to or athletics or just whatever it is you participate, does that money have to go to the board of ed and then it gets funneled through? So, it would be a donation to the board of ed. It wouldn't be necessarily to athletics and then the board of ed would have to receive that money and then decide where it's going to be, it's going to go. But seeing that it would come in under athletics and I know with the schools it gets crazy, you know what I mean about what we could do when it's five elementary, you know, how many elementary schools and all that. But I would think with that it could just sort of automatically go to athletics. I mean the board can determine however they want that money. I'm thinking
036about how we could funnel it in. Oh, they did that as a scholarship. Okay. Oh, I like that. Yeah, we did it. Is there Is there a dollar amount that has to stay under or or No. No. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. And look, and with that being said, I mean, the town's growing. you know, there's businesses that that that are flooding this town, right? So, I don't know if we have to reook, you know, I think we can bridge the gap with with an informative article if it's written right about how we're having these deficits, right? Well, you got to be careful again people might start to do those things. I agree. I agree with you, Kate. and like you know but again I don't know how you know I don't know how
037that's going to work with the policy and we just don't want it to be negative Kate and have it backfire and then that we're saying that we're getting under written correctly it because then we don't want it to backfire on us that we are just looking to help children that need help you know these 12 students so even if it was 12 kids x amount of dollars I you know um to raise a couple thousand dollars. I'm saying definitely we and how do we do that? Through a scholarship, right? You get a budget. I was talking about I know you don't know the numbers. Anybody proposed budget think we're going to spend I mean I know you don't want to say think bottom line is No. Yes. Yes. I mean Scott provides us that budget.
038Um okay. Yeah. At the when when we develop the budget have this. So we know what they basically we know how much money they need. Yeah. You got it right here. Well, and again in fairness to the budgetary process. I I've seen that. I know what that is. Okay. Like you know Scott's giving his budget if you see the title his budget request to administration but we don't get that. But I get a budget request from every department, every principal and all this other stuff. So there is a there is a this is walking a very odd kind of line here of no other department or principal are giving their request directly to the board and saying oh this is what I need. I mean you're you pay me to be superintendent to develop a
039budget based on the request. We understand that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We know that. Absolutely. But again so so so again what you know thank you Scott. we we understand what you know what you're up against and and the coaches and everything else, but I think that you know we're a town that's growing. I think that you know this is why this is why we're creating this meeting. We want to offer help and you um I think that with uh you know we can relook at this structure things in different ways. I think, you know, hopefully, you know, we'll get this scoreboard off the ground. Um, you know, and we can look at No, seriously, we can look at we can look at, you know, uh, potential advertisements, right? And, you know, and and see if
040that can offset some of our cost on the football and on on all the sports side, right? I think that I think there I think there's more. I think we can go out there and get a little bit more to kind of offset what we're what we're up against. I mean I'm hoping um you know I think that at least we need to explore the avenues right look at ticket sales look at ticket sales you know you know what can we do for SC what can we do for scholarships what can we do for you know I I had conversations with people businesses and I've been talking about school and things you know and they're willing people are willing to you know to to advertise and stuff like that so you know I don't know
041if we can go ahead and do that but I mean you know well but just so you know like I'm the last people that donated to that scholarship. But like as a business owner, every year I donate and let me tell you those people, I get a mail from them every single year. I donate once and every year it's like, "Oh, do this." You know what I mean? The same donations every single year. So once you get them in, I'm like, "Well, I'm going to do it again. I'm going to do it again." And I'm I'm writing checks. I mean, it's a charitable contribution. Like I it's a writeoff. So it's like, "Sure, I'll donate $500. I just saved money on my taxes and then I helped out people." So, it's like if if you
042if we started, you know, we could help whatever. We could help do that because we know business owners, too, and we could probably come up with a good 50 that we could start sending it out to that for for scholarships. But if you just have them on a mailing list, you send that out every year, you'll probably get them to redonate every single year. But you someone just has to, you know, put the work in every year to to try to grab that money every year. And I know we're all short staffed, but that's really what it takes because like I said, as a business owner, I get those in every year from different organizations and that's how that's how they get to I'm not calling them every year. They're getting it to me every
043year. So, if we went back to those people that donated years ago and start with that list, you know, it's probably even helped build it for next year. You know, I mentioned this at the last meeting we all got and it is truth. We're We're not here to try to hurt you. Love it. So, we're trying to help. The more information we get, Sure. it'll make it easier for us know what we have to do as far as finance. I want this important because something Oh, that's true. Now, I'll bet you every one of these board members my personal opinion, but no, I believe it. I understand. I I I get it, right? I mean, we're all we're all trying to get We're all trying to get everything that we can done, but there's just
044not enough resources available. I I get it. I I fully understand. So, I I think we understand participate, right? So, Anthony, do you want to move on to uh booster club? Yeah. Yeah. But it seems like when I I'll let you start on the booster club because I remember I was telling you that I was getting confused here. So you said the money first of all just tell me again. Well, let's look let's let's let's ask Scott what what can you tell us about booster clubs in fundraising? Um I can tell you that booster clubs typically pay for the things that we that I can't. Right. So they'll pay for apparel. They'll be you know at the end of the year they give their athletes t-shirts. You know, the kids call it swag, right? They
045get their they get hoodies, they get whatever. So that when they show up um to events and they're wearing Shelton apparel, I can tell you that most of the time if the kid didn't buy it themselves, it was provided by either a team fundraiser or the coach bought these shirts for everyone or it's a booster club type deal where they have provided whatever it is that they're wearing. I don't have I don't have the funding at all to outfit coaches, to outfit kids, and anything like that. How far does the booster club go? As far as different athletic Is it just for one, two, what is it for? So, not every not every program has a booster club. Okay. Um, but every but every team has the ability to fund raise within their own season.
046So, that's like um we see a lot of teams that do that. Volleyball, for example, does not have a booster club, right? So, they do a they do an online fundraiser. It pays for their banquetss. It pays for their trophies. It pays for things of that nature. So, it's individualized, right? It is individualized. Booster clubs are sport specific. Okay. And how many you believe are doing booster clubs? I I would have to go I would have to go through I would have to go through and collect that data. So I have I have a the 23 24 season for the boys lacrosse and one of their expenses are purchase uniform and apparel. That's what is it's not their is it their un their actual uniforms or is it the swag that I'm not sure I'm
047not sure what that is. All right. So, all right. Yeah. Okay. So, okay. Let me keep going here. Concession expenses, uh, scholarships and awards, board expenses, playoff t-shirts, car wash expenses, yada yada. So, I have a problem with you not knowing what the what they're purchasing. I don't know if you guys agree or not, but I mean, at this, you know, I think if they're going to be p, you know, it says purchasing purchase of uniforms. Is that, you know, do you normally purchase the lacrosse uniforms? Okay. So that's this is probably it's calling it's it's calling it's calling it's we want to make sure I you see what I mean though you Scott needs to make sure that besides besides banquet stuff besides the actual uniforms remember you know that Scott too like there
048could be an issue if lacrosse got of course and then soccer didn't or and then there's animosity right so we want to make sure that uniform forms get purchased by the athletic department, right? Anything that could cause inequity basically 100%. The problem want to make sure that get that I I would like I would like that too. The problem is sometimes they're they just show up, right? Stuff just appears. My very my very first year um we had baseball uniforms that I had I never knew anything about and coaches thanked their booster club at the banquet for it. I had no idea that they were purchased. That that's not that's you So, so, so with that being said, that this is this is why we're here. Sure. You know, so I don't know how we're
049going to do. We have a couple coaches here that might might help with the situation, but you know what? What if we said, "Hey, you know, spring, fall, winter sports, you know, uh, we meet at the gym, whoever's going to be the a booster club leader, parent, whatever it is." I mean, because they switch every year. Hey, this is the dos and don'ts, right? This is what you do. You talk to Mr. Allen. You talk to Mr. D. release and it you know and then it's got it's got to go through the board. What what however the steps that need to be taken we can't be blindfolded. I think they used that now. I do not. Okay. They used to have me either either each. So I I do agree that an inerson meeting would
050be okay beneficial if we can if we can get everybody to show up and however you need to do that if it's evening. However the case may be right a practice maybe you got to go to every practice. Hey family, you know, maybe you got to go to every field. You're, you know, I don't know how it's got to work, but I think that, you know, the communication needs to be out there, the do's and don'ts. This is what it's going to go. I mean, obviously, you know, there's there needs to be a sample, the financials just not to keep it, you know, we know everyone's honest, but we just want to make sure how can we help. I don't think we can wait until the season begins. So, I think the idea of going
051to every practice, I hear you, right? trying to make myself more available to them. But these all require significant notification where they have to submit it to Dr. Sarinich for him to put it on the agenda for the board to take a look at it for it to be approved. And the rules are that they must fund raise within their own season. So, if I wait until Yeah. The easiest way to do this process-wise, because again, Scott necessarily has the means to to run to all these locations, do when the club or organization submits their request to my office, they're given here's the dos and don'ts right there and then. So, so they're they're given that that document, you know, so they have it. So, they understand you're submitting a request, you need to have
052the this understanding if you're concerned about what they can and can't do. I'm not using I I use that as a piece of paper. Well, I think so if I might been here, but myself and you like I don't even know it's before we started this athletic subcommittee about booster clubs fundraising and um been very busy obviously on the so let me just back up minute are trying to clean up our fundraising policy. we are like modified um all over the in a in a positive way. It's not like it's going to be any heartache for anyone but through this process we realize that when we receive financials from certain clubs we want them at a different time. We want them basically at the end of the season say they work on the season and
053now submit it because what was happening is our policy just so you know basically says you submit that financials like the next year. So then next thing you know people are no longer part of the booster club and they're like I can't find my financials because they left and we're like okay this can't happen. So we we're cleaning up that process. So I think what you know even what Jason is saying here you have your booster club regulations. So we have a policy that says hey follow this process and then you step in with administrative regulations which you have which are your booster club regulations that you inherited from John Niski. We would love for you. We're gonna fix the process on how people submit their documents to us. We would love for you now
054to go through that booster club, you know, regulation and see if there's any that you would like would more than happy help you in that process if you our advice input, you know, because we want to make sure that it is running so that when you hand them that booster club regulation, right in there it says this is how many you could fund raise, right? I think it says you could do three. It's in your policy. It's not in ours, right? It's in your regulations, you know. So, those rules are really being handed out by you. So, you know, if you want our advice, you know, if you want to talk about them, we're basically willing to discuss it with you because we want this process to go smoothly so that like you're saying, someone's
055not just showing up with uniforms. Okay. and that everybody's submitting their financials in the right way and that we're basically on the same page because we're over here with a policy and we don't want to make a policy that doesn't work for you either. So it's like we have to bridge that gap between your administrative regulation and our policy. Does that make sense? Right. So like all we're really doing in our fundraising policy is just changing honestly even though it's like marked up by like it's marked up with a lot of red honestly all it really is is just changing the process of when they really submit those financials to us. We want them, you know, at on a different stage so that it's basically at the end of the season. But, you know, and
056we've basically cleaned up language, but we want you to make sure that you're giving them those booster club regulations. So, I have no and you right. You know what I mean? Making sure that they're not doing and buying things to make sports unequ. So, that's the part that I don't understand. I don't know how I'm going to keep track of that, right? Because these are all well these are all independent when these are booster clubs and they are separate entities. They have their own debit cards. They have their own checking accounts. Like this is not a centralized thing. It's in their rules. So here's the thing. So as long as it's in their rules that it says that's where you need to go through the booster club regulations that they can't buy things. So look
057through your regulations and make sure it doesn't say that they could buy things that would make a team unequitable. you know, make it make it say that they could only use their funding for the things that you just said, your swag, your banquet, your trophies, you know, the things that you're you're that's what you're fundraising for. But if they want to buy uniforms or something that's going to make the team in unequitable, there needs to have like an asterk next to it that says must have approval, right? And so just I don't have your regulations. Understood. I I have no problem sitting down with those. If if they did that, if they did buy something that made it unequitable and it's in your booster club regulation, well, then they'll be held accountable, right? Okay. Right.
058Does that make sense? So, it's not like you have to chase them. As long as it's in writing, that's all that matters. Okay. And then if and then if baseball came up with brand new uniforms, you could say, "Hey, what did you do? You're not supposed to do that." Then that conversation would be that conversation had. Would you guys all agree? you know, as long as so the policy already the policy already determines about administrative rags. Correct. That that's an aspect there. What what happens here is whatever Scott determines for athletics or or I do for because it's an administrative rag or correct however it's written down. It's the board who's giving permission to fund. Right. So if if a group violated the regulation set by administration, administration needs to report that back to the
059board and it's the board who has to take accountability to right to the because it's the board who approved the fund. I understand your regulation says to not buy something that's going to make it unequitable and I have no problem going through the old the old document and updating it. That's fine. With that being said, there's 20 there's 24 different teams and 24 potential clubs. How do we get that information out to each individual booster club? But but that's where I mean when when Scott or or any person or administrators overseeing any kind of clubs, they have these, you know, printed like these are the I say rules or the regulations for fundraising. They're given that to the people when they get permission. that that's all I mean again so as the process is written
060currently and this aspect will still remain the same even with the new revision a club says we you know we're we're we're a club for sport X and we're going to raise money for this sport they have to send their letter requesting to raise money to my office right then puts that on the board agenda for the board to review it if the board consents and say yes, this club can go raise it. Once they're approved, our office notifies them that they're approved. We can then with their approval notice and then the administrative regulations say you've been approved pending these regulations and you have to now the new thing is and Mrs. Romano referred to that's going to happen is at the end of the season you need to submit your financials to the board
061finance committee. It's going to be the finance committee's responsibility to say here were the regulations they received. This is what they did. Did they follow it? Yes or no. If they didn't follow it, the finance committee can then follow up with the committee and say why did you do this? And the regulations say or the policy says if they violate it, they're they're forfeiting their ability to raise money in the future. No, they they they hurt the program cuz now now the following year when they come in, the board's going to say, "No, you were not giving you permission because you didn't follow the rules last year." I I think the process right right where we want it to be. But the question is, do we have every every club bring that information forward? They're
062going to have to have this new regulation. How But how do we execute that? How do we how do we make sure they do that? Well, they they but they so again when the board says we approved and my office notifies them that they've been approved they will be given all the things they have to do your office. That's that's how if we get like three officers signed off on. So if one of them is the dingbat who forgets that their creative rigs, somebody else who waited that thing that said we can't do Yeah. I don't know. Are they are they do they sign the moves club regulations? Is there a signature? It doesn't even have to I mean especially with electronic email now you can put read receipts and find out. Yes, you received
063the email. We sent it to you. Yeah. I mean I I think it's fair to say that now's got enough going on. Yeah. So that that that's what I mean. I I want you know Exactly. then it'll be No, but once we get the financials of everybody's things, it's going to when it's decent, like you just said, it says uniforms. Well, you could question that then you could say, "Hey, um, by the way, it says uniforms. Let's let's confirm that they're just using the terminology uniforms and they didn't just go buy uniforms to make a team at all." And then therefore, you know, Mr. Sage, or we could even ask Scott Snell to go back and say, "Hey, could you ask baseball, did they buy uniforms or was this just swag?" And that's how we're
064going to find out to make sure it's it's equitable. So Scott's input is going to be valued in the the regulations to talk about, you know, how many, you know, fundraisers should export do, how many things like that. But then you got to understand with this new policy, all fundraisers will get a delineated like dos and don'ts list that goes beyond like the athletic thing based on you know IRS rules based on you you you know you can't give somebody over $600 for doing something without reporting that to the IRS. You know, and this is where where these delineations will be noted because here's what happens in protecting the board and the policy. If a booster club goes out and pays somebody an excess amount and doesn't report to the IRS, you're liable because you
065gave them permission to do it. So, as long as we delineate that and say these are the things you can't other things you can't, you know, use debit cards without receipts or or make purchases like they're going to get this delineated list and it goes beyond athletics, beyond what Scott wants to do to regulate the athletics, just the dos and don'ts of we appreciate you fundraising, but for the protection of the board and and the legal aspects around financing, be mindful these things can't be done. you know, it doesn't prohibit the f the any club from raising the money and doing what they want to do. It's just we're reminding them not even of our rules, but the rules under like the IRS, the rules that can can be, you know, audited in terms of
066money. Does does that get done within policy or is that something you're that's going to be part of the administrative regs with this policy that will be put on the board agenda tonight? Good. Okay. Now, there was one thing in there when we were talking about fundraising. This is what Anthony was for. So, I'm gonna bring it back up. And it probably didn't make sense because I saw Scott's eyebrows get. So, what um when we were talking about pay to participate, you know, Anthony was mentioned like what booster clubs. So, um I know you asked them to supplement. Okay. So, you know, on on certain things. So, when um and and we've had some discussion email lately about a couple. So when we talk about equity um and again in your administrative regs you know
067you'll make sure that it talks about that now that we're we're mentioning that you know as far as uniforms or anything like that um I think the concern that we're discussing you know some of us were was discussing even myself make sure that if we're asking you know one team to pay and help supplement we'll say I'm just going to use teams it doesn't matter who they are we'll just say soccer um wait they have refs not right refs They have reps, correct? So, say, sorry, I don't want to say it wrong. So, say we ask so, say you go to soccer and you say, "Hey, soccer, can you help me out with $200 to help pay for reps?" Well, then are we asking baseball for $200 and football for $200 and track for $200?
068And the reason why I'm making a note of this is because then now, next thing you know, we could get push back on saying, "Well, wait a minute." But, you know, and I think we've even recently had push back from parents to say, "Wait a minute, I'm the booster club. I'm raising all this money and now you're asking, you know, and there was comments being thrown to say, well, I'm, you know, pay to participate and now you're asking me to pay all this money for, you know, but then is everybody else paying that same dollar amount?" So, I'm bringing this up here, right? Because it would be maybe in your administrative rags, not us, because that would be you, you know, to say maybe we need to look at it to say, how do we
069make that equitable across the board for every team because, you know, then that push back is is going back on you. So, I'm I'm here to bring it up to be like, well, I sort of agree with them to be honest with you. Like I but I understand that you know football might have 200 kids and baseball only has 30 and and maybe it does need to vary and maybe it does need to vary and you could tell me why it needs to vary but I am definitely all about equity. So it's like well if we're asking you know them to pay $1,000 why aren't we asking that I think I think that it's like where do you where do you stand with that? Like what was your thought process? I understand. So I I
070think that it is very specific to what the sport is and what and what it is that we're talking about, right? So we would never ask a booster club to pay for referees, right? Like that's that's the athletic that's the athletic department's responsibility is to pay for is to pay for the referees. What we what we would tell the booster clubs like if you want this extra service, you have to pay for it, right? So the required portions of it, we need referees, we need uniforms, we need buses, we need coaches, right? That comes from athletics when we want something extra. So if football wants to have pink uniforms for for a special night once a year, that's not something that athletics is going to pay for. That's not within our budget. So if the
071booster club wants something like that, they're going to have to go out and purchase that track. If they want to use the timing system, I was a track coach for a long time. Trust me, I want the timing system. But but at the same time, that is a luxury, not a necessity. And okay, I and like we do our best to try and make that work where I split I split the bill with the booster club. That's what she was referring to that she was upset about that she had to pay. Okay. And but we've been splitting it for years. And truthfully, that's not to sound disrespectful in any way, but that's a courtesy that I'm providing, right? And it's it's extra money, right? just so well that's where we I sort of need to
072hear what you think because we're like well wait a minute are we asking them to pay that but then not somebody else you know and I just I would love to have a blanket a clause across the board would make things a lot easier but I don't I don't think we're living in that in that world I do think it's very specific on the sport and what it is that we're talking about purchasing them to pay for um timing grass whatever that is because it was above and beyond correct it is not something that's it's not something that's required it's just something that they would like Okay, that's that's what we need to hear. We've been talking about this as you know. So, it's like let's we're trying because as we're talking about pay to
073participate, as we're talking about, you know, fundraising, our policies, do we need to change something? Like, do we need to add that in there, too? You know? Sure. We want to make sure it's all equitable. So, no, that makes sense. Well, I know we have finance coming up next, so Yeah. Yeah, we're good. Yeah. All right. Well, and listen, we're going to we're going through our policy. Please look at your administrative reg. and just we want this process to go smooth and just make it all equitable. Right. So, leaving here, you understand that we're going to be fine combing through the finances where we can help how we can bridge the gap. Appreciate that. Um, and then and then also really get a hold on on on the booster club side of it stuff. I
074mean, again, just to get structured, just to get structured, you know, and I and I I appreciate the opportunity to put my input on the the the fundraising regs that existed before me. I will submit them to Dr. Sarinich like what I think needs to be changed or condensed. Yeah. And then we'll roll with it from there. Sitting for 30 days. So, do you think that you might want to add stuff to it? I meant the one I meant the booster club guidelines that Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever you feel like I think I think there's definitely going to need to be some collaboration between this and what that document says. Yeah. You know, I think there needs to be policy. Sure. Yeah. We want to get through our policy. This is this is this
075is a start of what of what needs to happen and then understood. Good. Well, thank you, Scott. Well, we thank you for your time. My pleasure. I'd like to make a motion here for an hour. Okay. I'd like to make a motion to adjourn. I'll make the motion to adjurnn. And I will second that.