By Billy McCullers
Lake Okeechobee News reader
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OKEECHOBEE — I was in the room when the Okeechobee County School Board voted to give itself the ability to charge private school students $400 to participate in district athletics.
As far as I know, they have not started collecting the fee yet.
That isn’t really my issue.
My issue is that I sat through the meeting and never heard anyone make a convincing case for why the fee was necessary in the first place. I didn’t see the math. I didn’t hear a cost analysis.
Nobody explained what a private school football player costs the district, what a volleyball player costs, or how we somehow arrived at $400. What I did hear was plenty about school choice.
Earlier in that same meeting, the Board heard a presentation about students leaving the traditional public school system for other educational options and the financial impact those choices have had on the district. There was no mistaking the frustration surrounding that subject.
Then later comes an opportunity to charge one group of those families more money. Private school families.
And wouldn’t you know it, the recommendation wasn’t $50. It wasn’t $100. It wasn’t $200. It was $400. The maximum.
Maybe those two things had absolutely nothing to do with each other. I was sitting there. It sure didn’t feel like it. Anybody who has been around Okeechobee sports knows something else.
These programs fundraise. Parents fundraise. Coaches fundraise. Boosters fundraise. Kids fundraise. Local businesses sponsor teams. The community buys tickets, banners and whatever else the kids are selling because we want these programs to succeed.
So before asking a private school family for another $400, I have a pretty simple question:
What exactly are we paying for?
Show us what that student costs.
Show us the additional equipment expense.
Show us the transportation expense.
Show us how you arrived at $400.
And show us where that $400 would actually go.
Does it go to the team? Does the coach get another $400 in the team’s budget? Does it pay for transportation? Or does it go into some district account while that same team continues asking parents and businesses to raise money?
Those seem like questions somebody should have answered before voting for the fee. The Legislature gave school districts the authority to do this. It did not require Okeechobee to do it. Permission is not a mandate. And authority is not justification. Our elected officials made this decision. They own it.
Government is famous for creating solutions in search of a problem, and right now this looks an awful lot like one.
Normally you identify a problem, demonstrate the need, consider the options and then decide whether another fee is justified. You don’t start with the fee and work backwards looking for a reason to defend it.
Maybe there is a legitimate financial need. Fine. Show us. Because if this fee will only generate peanuts compared with the district’s overall budget, then I have to wonder why elected officials thought it was worth alienating families over in the first place.
For a relatively insignificant amount of government revenue, the Board may have handed school choice families something considerably more valuable:
A reason to remember.
And elections have a funny way of making people remember things.
The Board made the decision.
Now show us the problem it was supposed to solve.
