Activities department evolving financially from top down

Nodaway Valley’s activities department is evolving in systems from the top down so that moving forward, all activities programs have a smoother path toward getting the items and equipment they need to operate smoothly and effectively.

At last Wednesday’s school board meeting, a discussion arose about fundraisers. Some fundraisers activities directly feed into the school activities fund while others do it indirectly and are held by a club that exists in conjunction with a particular activity.

“You have your basketball club that’s outside of the school or your wrestling club that’s outside of the school. They help fund different things that they may need throughout the year,” Honnold said in a follow-up interview last Thursday. “What the board wanted last night was a list of fundraisers that will be deposited directly into the school.”

While she clarifies that all of the funds ultimately come back to the students and programs, Honnold explained that club accounts are not directly managed by the school district.

A fair number of the district’s sports and programs have difficulty breaking even each year. They must pay for referees, uniforms, travel, equipment and entry fees, and not all activities make enough revenue to offset their expenses. The “club” accounts come into play to help overcome that obstacle. Part of evolving systems within the department are designed to fix this over time, Honnold said.

“I don’t want to hold kids or coaches accountable because things weren’t in a good place before,” Honnold said. “We want to make sure we have a way to provide things for kids.”

In providing for kids, the costs associated with operating an activities department are high.

“When you think about a cross country team, that might not be as expensive because you’re only doing uniforms every so often,” Honnold said.

Conversely, wrestling singlets can take a beating from the high number of matches wrestled each season. Football equipment also takes a beating. In basketball, light and dark colors of every uniform is required.

“You can buy cheap, but they’re not going to last and you’re spending more money in a few years,” Honnold said. “We’ve tried to stick with higher quality things. These ones we haven’t we’ve had to do replacements on, but companies are usually really good at that. Some activities just have higher needs than others.”

In addition to uniforms are costs associated with other equipment and paying officials.

In response to this, the activities department transitioned how traffic flowed in and out of games this summer, and the department saw a drastic increase in gate revenue. Honnold said the district received some feedback on that. Their goal is not to gouge fans at the gate but is to ensure their ability to pay for things activities require to operate.

The Nodaway Valley Booster Club is also a valuable partner to the activities department, often going in financially on many of the purchases for activities, as a result of work activities participants do in concession stands throughout the year.

“If a team works in the concession stand, they get a chunk of what’s earned in the concession stand that night [right away],” Honnold said. “That way they know what they’re getting. The booster club has been great.”

Nodaway Valley students receive free admittance into games and many other school partners receive free admittance for working at games or serving in other related ways.

“We want people to shift their perspective that we’re creating opportunities with every ticket that is bought. We’re creating opportunities for our kids now and for kids in the future We’re creating opportunities for our kids now and for kids in the future,” Honnold said.

The activities director added the activities department isn’t allowing things to go in the hole right now. A long term goal is to reduce the amount of needed fundraisers.

“Coming up with a set budget to start with for the activities department is a goal. Right, wrong or indifferent, I don’t think that’s something we’ve necessarily had in the past,” Honnold said. “We may still do a little fundraising — it’s fun to do posters, it’s fun to sell apparel. Staying consistent with selling tickets and working on those things [is important].”