Booster club donates money to save Lake Zurich soccer programs

A Lake Zurich High School soccer booster club is trying to save the sophomore girls' and junior varsity boys' programs from the budget ax.

The Corner Kick Club has written a check to Lake Zurich Unit District 95 for $4,620 - the amount that would be saved if the district trimmed those programs, as proposed, to help close a budget gap next year.

District 95 officials are investigating whether the money can be accepted for the specific purpose of saving those teams.

"We want to make sure that we've looked into all of the legalities of the situation," school board President Kathy Brown said. "There are odd rules sometimes you would never think of."

The district announced a list of recommended cuts Feb. 12 that would affect every school building and the administration. A drop in the Consumer Price Index from 4.1 percent to 0.1 percent is causing an anticipated shortfall in property tax revenue, official say. They plan to cut $4 million next year, or about 5 percent of the total budget.

In the athletic arena, the two soccer teams joined varsity golf and bowling, freshman and sophomore B boys' basketball, freshman B girls' basketball, JV cheerleading, freshman B boys' baseball, freshman B football and freshman B girls' volleyball as programs facing the budget ax.

The Corner Kick Club donated the money to the district last week in hopes of removing sophomore girls' soccer and JV boys' soccer from that list.

"We decided that since we had the funds sitting in the account, everyone was in agreement that we would rather keep all the teams intact (instead of buying new uniforms)" said Russ Cerqua, the club's treasurer.

The booster organization supplements the high school's budget for the soccer programs. Cerqua said it accumulated the funds through years of fundraisers and running a concession stand at games.

That money is usually saved for a variety of items the coaches request, such as new uniforms, soccer balls or a storage shed.

Cerqua hopes the school board will be able to reserve the funds for their intended purpose.

"If they can't (accept the check) for some reason, they would let us know, but that doesn't seem to be an issue," he said.