IHSA photo policy brings audit call
SPRINGFIELD -- A suburban lawmaker wants state auditors to review the Illinois High School Association in response to the high school athletic group barring media photographers from championship venues.
Unless news organizations gave up their rights to sell reprints of photos taken during championship games and matches, IHSA officials had been denying photographers access to the competition fields and floors.
The practice, however, was recently relaxed for the upcoming girls' basketball championships.
State Rep. Sandra Pihos, a Glen Ellyn Republican, said her request seeks to determine whether the IHSA is improperly controlling media coverage.
The audit would examine how the IHSA selects vendors that hold exclusive photo rights and how the revenues from the sale of photos affect the contracts.
Marty Hickman, IHSA executive director, was not available for comment Tuesday.
Separate legislation to prohibit the IHSA or any public school from infringing on media coverage rights has so far not advanced.
Pihos' push would require a "management audit" of the IHSA. The association, which is not a state agency, already adheres to compliance audits every two years, which were mandated by lawmakers in 1995.
"Whereas a compliance audit looks at an agency's entire program ... a management audit will just focus on a very small topic," said Jane Stricklin, executive director of the Legislative Audit Commission.
"I'm looking at one specific issue here. That was my purpose in asking the auditor general to address the situation," Pihos said. "For years things seemed to work as they were with our news media and then all of a sudden we had this change of venue with the IHSA. I'm also wondering what they do in other states."
Pihos isn't the first lawmaker to try to get state auditors involved in IHSA disputes.
Two years ago, a downstate lawmaker proposed a study of whether the state could be able to take control and manage IHSA events. An audit of IHSA finances was also requested but never passed the legislature.