St. Charles district might merge booster clubs in wake of accusations

The more than 50 booster clubs at St. Charles Unit District 303 high schools may soon be consolidated into only four in response to criminal allegations and the recommendations of an audit this summer.

The allegations of missing money proved to be false, but the audit to prove it uncovered a mishmash of accounting procedures Superintendent Don Schlomann said includes too much potential for wrongdoing and inequalities Monday.

“The new policy would dictate how to divide up the money, how to use the money and would also tell you how many booster clubs to have,” Schlomann said. “I feel really uncomfortable as the superintendent to not have some checks and balances on this.”

Schlomann made it clear his preference is to have no more than two booster clubs at each high school. One club would be for athletics. The other club would focus on the arts. No matter the number, the district must create a more uniform approach, Schlomann and school board members said.

All the booster clubs have different approaches to their governance and accounting practices. Some of the clubs are 501(c)(3) organizations, but not all of them are. Not all of the clubs perform regular fund audits. And only some of the clubs require coaches to sign off on expenses.

“To the best of my knowledge, we haven’t had anything that’s gone wrong,” Schlomann said. “But it would be very easy for something to go wrong with all those different processes. We need to clean that up.”

The question is how to do that without losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in support. School board members worried eliminating all the individual booster clubs will result in parents losing interest in supporting the teams. Individual clubs allow parents a direct way to fund the sport their student participates in. Having a central booster club eliminates that direct link but would help the district avoid accusations of illegal financial bias toward male sports.

For example, girls golf at St. Charles East High School raised about $1,500 in booster funds last year. Boys basketball raised almost $40,000. All told, booster clubs at East raked in about $340,000. The district kicks in only about $60,000 to sports at each school for supplies. The staff said losing all the booster money would require the district to raise the budget for sports supplies by at least threefold.

School board member Mike Vyzral, a booster club member, said he thinks parents will eventually get over the change to a central booster club. He said the district will take some heat initially, but some of that can be defused with a system that is more equitable. For instance, Vyzral wants to get rid of all the extra requests for money parents of athletes receive throughout the season.

“If a parent pays $100 per sport, that should be their fee,” Vyzral said. “That’s it. I don’t think they should be asked to pony up $100 or $200 more, per sport. If you have several children in several sports, you can end up spending an extra $3,000 a year. That’s wrong. I think that sort of funding is the district’s obligation. If we can’t afford the costs of an activity, then we need to cut it back.”

A committee of booster parents, coaches and district staff will be formed to create a plan for the booster clubs going forward. The school board must vote on any changes before they are instituted.

Slash: Not all clubs equal in governance, accounting practices