SDHSAA Fleeces Fans for Foundation Funds

Bob Mercer has written a story about the South Dakota Activities Association's new ticket pricing policy which steals a dollar per ticket from member school and places it under the "care" of the SDHSAA Foundation.

The net result of the new ticket pricing policy is a 40% increase in ticket prices for all sub-state tournaments. Despite this increase in prices, it is not uncommon for schools to lose money hosting these sub-state events. The SDHSAA gets their take from the gross proceeds while members schools are left to pay expenses out of what is left. In some cases, that is not enough to cover the overhead and so schools end up dipping into their own funds to make up the shortfall.

From Mercer's article:

School officials aren’t happy with the $2 increase, according to Sen. Larry Lucas, D-Mission. “So that message is being heard,” Lucas said. 

The groundswell against the $2 increase prompted a response from Carney earlier this month.
He sent a letter to school districts statewide on Nov. 8. He promised that money from the foundation will eventually flow back to schools.

The Aug. 29 vote called for a foundation committee to be established. Until those people are appointed, the association board will oversee the foundation.

The foundation committee is supposed to make recommendations to the association board and the board will make recommendations to the SDHSAA member schools for the April annual meeting, according to Carney.

Carney said in his letter that he’s working with Stephanie Judson, president of the South Dakota Community Foundation. Carney and SDCF’s then-president Bob Sutton signed the agreement in 2007 creating the activities foundation.

Records from the board’s meetings in 2012 and 2013 show Carney and his staff presented options for raising money for the foundation on several occasions.

The meeting minutes however don’t show any discussions or explanations about why the foundation needed the money or why the foundation should be used rather than the association’s treasury.

If the money from the foundation will eventually flow back to schools anyway, why does Mr. Carney feel the need to take it from the schools in the first place?

Does Mr. Carney believe the SDHSAA knows how to distribute that money better than the member schools do?

So none of the foundation funds will be used for SDHSAA “pet projects”?

Do you think fans would rather give the dollar to the SDHSAA or to their own member school?