Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for June 23, 2006 NEW FUNDRAISER REGULATIONS

Before you panic...

The "fine print" in the article/law...it only applies to fundraisers that involve "contracts".

From the Southern Illinoisan...

New fundraising law gets mixed reaction from local educators

BY KRISTEN CATES, the southern

The decision by state legislators to put regulations on school fundraisers and contracts that might generate additional money is creating a mixed reaction among Southern Illinois' educators.

The new law, which goes into effect July 1, requires all contracts for goods and services that will generate more than $1,000 for a school district to be pre-approved by the school board, said Andrea Preston, assistant public information officer with the Illinois State Board of Education.

School boards will then be required to submit information on the fundraisers along with the annual budget, she said, according to Senate Bill 0293.

"It's just adding more accountability," Preston said. "It's always nice to know where money is coming in and where it is going."

Marleis Trover, superintendent of Vienna High School, said her knowledge of the legislation is limited but it doesn't seem worth it.

"I think they should spend their time on a more worthwhile issue," she said. "It certainly doesn't warrant a state law."

There is already a lot of oversight by school principals when it comes to fundraisers and contracts with companies for fundraisers, Trover said.

All of those extracurricular fundraising accounts - such as soda machines for athletics - are audited every year and the problem could be solved by just adding a probe to the audit that looks for potential discrepancies.

Justin Klarer, director of the Crimson Express marching band at Murphysboro High School, said he wonders how this will impact his students' fundraisers that raise nearly $60,000 in program funding each year.

His concern isn't that the school board would start having too much involvement in which fundraisers the band chooses to do. Instead, he sees fault in the fact that at least once last year, the band had a last-minute principal-approved fundraiser that the school board - which only meets once a month - might not have had time to approve were the law in place.

"That will be an additional level of red tape for us," he said.

However, the legislation deals strictly with contracts that generate more than $1,000, said Jan Bush, business manager for the Murphysboro district. Fundraisers that don't involve contracts won't be subject to scrutiny by the board.

"It will be more work for each individual school and each individual activity fund," Bush said. "At least if there's a report to the board it's even more of a trail than what we had before."

Technically the school board could begin having more input on fundraisers, but Bush said she doesn't see that being a problem.

"It's just one more thing that we have to do," she said.

But that's the one thing that upsets Trover.

"They say we're having less red tape," she said. "But they give us a little more."