District investigation points to communication breakdown

A Newport-Mesa Unified School District investigation into a complaint about the Corona del Mar High School cheerleading booster club found major breakdowns in communication and funding that resulted in more than half of the team’s competition season to be canceled, officials said Thursday.

Parents filed a formal complaint this week against the booster club for not allowing them to see financial records. The team had six out of 10 competitions canceled this year due to lack of funds, and parents questioned where their money went.

The investigation by the district showed that communication between the booster, the school, parents and the executive board broke down, which allowed for a misunderstood and a poorly implemented budget, Assistant Supt. of Secondary Education Chuck Hinman said.

The team’s booster initially set a budget for the year and counted on a certain amount of contributions from fundraisers and family donations to pay for the team’s expenditures, Hinman said. If all donations were met by parents, the team would roughly have $150,000 to use, not including fundraisers, according to the complaint.

But a young cheerleaders camp, which is normally a major fundraiser for the team, went poorly and some parents never paid or raised the funds asked at the beginning of the year, Hinman said. This presented the team with a shortfall of funds that didn’t match its budget.

“You never spend what you don’t have,” Hinman said. “Because [the camp] did so poorly, they should have done more [fundraising].”

Once the team started canceling competitions, parents started questioning why and asked to see financial records. They were denied, which prompted the complaint to the district.

Hinman said the financial records are now “transparent” and parents, Corona del Mar Principal Fal Asrani and booster club members are working together to rectify the situation.

“The booster structure to provide that avenue [to view finances] was not in place,” Hinman said. “They only had a few parent volunteers running the program, which is a huge burden, and that is what caused it to go slow.”

Parents, school officials and booster club members had a meeting this morning to discuss this year’s financial woes and are starting to develop a plan for next year’s team and budget, Hinman said.

DANIEL TEDFORD may be reached at (714) 966-4632 or at daniel.tedford@latimes.com.