OK folks, gather 'round. Print up a copy of this report. We are going to have a chat about why the Booster clubs need to get out of the business of handling school trip money (and other public funds) in their bank accounts IMMEDIATELY. Not next year. Not two years from now. NOW. The school system has been stalling way too long on this. The Chorus and Orchestra programs are being left in the lurch right now. Some of the Band programs are still playing games with the money.
Print up a copy and follow along.
This trip was in April of 2012. I obtained accounting data in March, sounded the alarm as it looked like dozens of kids still weren't paid up. Everybody was allowed to travel whether they paid or not. Don't let people do this.
I pulled more records. I kept asking questions. I was told after the trip that everything was fine, the trip was shut down, the books were closed up. All I did was calculate out how many kids traveled, multiplied it by the cost of the trip, and point out that the numbers didn't jive. I talked it over with the front office, we factored in three families who made partial payments and then backed out. NO STAFF MEMBER CHECKED WITH THE PARENTS, THE SCHOOL PAID FOR THEIR TRIPS, THE PARENTS REFUSED TO MAKE ANY MORE PAYMENTS, AND WE ALL GOT TAKEN TO THE CLEANERS. Even factoring that in, the numbers did not match up. I persisted. I insisted. I basically screamed bloody murder.
The money for this trip was running through a school bank account. The payments were being kept track of on a Booster computer by a volunteer. We obtained a copy of another spreadsheet after the trip had been shut down. The thing never made it to the file folder in the front office. I don't think anybody responsible even looked at it. There were numerous errors, people under and over paid, math errors, etc.
One of the school officials spent many, many long hours going through all the deposit receipts, etc. to completely recreate this spreadsheet. I saw a bill for $1000 of bank records. The citizens of the county paid for that. They finally stopped that due to the cost.
To quickly summarize this, I compared the two heavily redacted spreadsheets, and due to certain very unusual amounts, was able to match up most of the payment problems on the two spreadsheets. There were several large payments recorded on the first sheet that did not show up on the second, the one you are looking at right now. It made certain people look like they were paid in full when they weren't. I think you know what that means.
First of all, I was told the Boosters took it upon themselves to threaten one of the families who backed out, and they coughed up the rest of the money. They didn't have the right to do that. They are volunteers. This was a school-sponsored trip. Unfortunately, since the school staff were remiss in not talking to the PARENTS before paying for the trip, and the family was threatened by a bunch of volunteers, a very large check was politely written to them as arrangements could have been made with the travel agency if somebody had been paying attention to the deadlines. The other two just walked away from their $50 deposit and left us in the lurch. This is why you want very large deposits. This is why the terms need to be presented up front. This is why you need you make sure BEFORE you pay for somebody's trip that they are really traveling. Look at the number of people who ignored the payment due dates and came wandering in at the last minute with the money. Get a huge deposit.
One of the school officials had to call dozens of families asking for them to pay up, or confirming overpayments and offering refunds. The little $8 ones are not the issue. There were several families who owed large amounts-
$220, $218, $184, $168, $400, $500, $200, $206, etc. Most of them paid up real quick. Yeh. The $500 family worked out a payment plan. The schools are not supposed to float loans to people! They had to make an exception because they messed up. There were several families who were owed large refunds-$50, $50, $100, $218, $84, $50, $200, $218, $50, $64, $97, $50, $206, $100, etc. They were all paid back by the school system. I fought, kicked, and screamed for you people, and in return for that I have been called an effing bitch and a whole host of other names. Apparently I am the "laughingstock of Fairfax County". You are very welcome. I hope you enjoyed receiving your checks. And I am very glad that you people who can't keep track of your bills and try and stick it to the other parents had your butts kicked.
Stuff like this has probably been going on for years.
The liability with these trips is huge. This is one of the reasons why you are now entering information into the cloud owned by the school system. This is one of the reasons you are not allowed to write checks for public funds any more. THIS IS WHY PARENTS NEED TO REFUSE TO WRITE CHECKS TO A BOOSTER CLUB FOR TRIPS (or class fees). IMMEDIATELY. These types of records are now available via FOIA (I finally got that straight), but the financial issues and liability for the money are with the Boosters. The school system might not be allowed to help and might not help with paying people back if Boosters screw up or the money disappears. They delegated their work to volunteers, so they should retain the liability. But, the money is not in their bank account. This is a mess. You have public records in garages and attics and basements all over Fairfax County right now. THEY SHOULD BE IN A SCHOOL COMPUTER SYSTEM.
Remember the MOU? That was nothing more than a gussied up attempt to transfer the liability from the school system to the Boosters. Remember the part about how the school system expected any "lost" funds to be returned? That meant that the officers were going to have to figure out a solution if something major or minor happened. I read through that thing in front of the Deputy and that was the first thing I pointed out. It took me all of ten seconds to see through that. The school system is supposed to retain the responsibility for anything they delegate to a volunteer. They were trying to walk away from that with a signed agreement. Remember the insurance issues I brought up earlier? This was going to be an agreement with a SCHOOL SYSTEM to manage GOVERNMENT FUNDS. Many of you could have been totally screwed if anything happened. I fought, kicked, and screamed for you on that issue, also. I was the one who pulled up the insurance policies, etc. You were also being told to plan on purchasing insurance for that money, but we already pay to insure that money via our taxes. It just has to be in the right bank account. They were trying to use you. They love you guys but that is some kind of love.
This is also why you do NOT want to try to circumvent the safety net of having public funds go straight into a school account by Boosters collecting the money from parents, putting it in their bank account, and then writing one large check to the school for a school-sponsored activity, be it a marching band camp, pre-season, a trip, a class fee. I think I might be seeing some of that. While that money is sitting in a Booster account, it is at risk and the officers are at risk. And the parents are at risk.
You hand the liability and the responsibility over to the school system immediately. You pull those records, you do the math, you ask a LOT of questions and you DEMAND answers. And you don't shut up until you get them.
More reports are coming....
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