The Wrangell Athletic Club has raised more than $17,000 toward covering the estimated $24,000 to $25,000 the school district spent on sending students, coaches and chaperones to state competition in the 2023-2024 school year.
The district had sent the fundraising group an invoice for more than $29,000, but the nonprofit is contesting about $5,000 of the charges.
The Wrangell Athletic Club said the additional costs were for school district administrators who accompanied the students to competition, which is outside of what the nonprofit believes it should cover.
“We are an organization for students and sports,” said club vice president Jack Carney. “We are paying for coaches. We are paying for chaperones. We are paying for students that qualify. We are not paying for administration to accompany the teams.”
The school district in 2023 decided it could no longer cover the expenses of travel to state competition and asked for community fundraising to reimburse the spending going forward. The district used its reserves to cover an accumulated debt of state travel from the prior year.
Carney added that there were some other issues with the invoice for 2023-2024 travel, but didn’t elaborate. He estimated the correct amount should be about $5,000 less. “We have yet to get the updated invoice.”
Thus far, the club has raised $17,390 for last year’s state travel. The donations came from businesses and individuals. He encouraged people who want to contribute to send checks to Wrangell Athletic Club, P.O. Box 248, Wrangell, 99929.
Schools Superintendent Bill Burr said he recently discussed the invoice amount with Carney and club president Chris Johnson, and felt it was a fair request but he would need to confer with the district’s business manager about the billings when she returns from vacation next week.
Burr said that ideally, an administrator is present at any state tournament so they can make decisions on behalf of the students’ parents or guardians in the event of an emergency. “If the (accompanying) coach, by chance, is a teacher, they have that ability to operate in place of parents, but there are very few coaches that are teachers anymore.”
Burr conceded that arranging for administrators who aren’t also serving as coaches or chaperones to accompany the team would be part of the district’s cost, not billed to the nonprofit for reimbursement, but that may not have been conveyed to Andrew when she drew up the invoice.
Johnson, who has been away in Sitka for his full-time job in commercial fishing, has kept in touch with Carney during the summer. They will follow up with potential donors to cover the remaining amount of 2023-2024 travel.
Carney said the club was “in great shape,” given that their organization didn’t really get started until November 2023, and then the November landslide pushed the start of their fundraising to early 2024. He said once they pay last year’s travel costs in full they’ll start working on next year, and more companies have begun to express interest in becoming donors. “We have the benefit of working the whole year on this.”
“I’m very optimistic, super excited and really thankful that the community is stepping up to help our kids,” Carney said.
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