PANAMA CITY BEACH — Rules concerning usage fees pertaining to Arnold’s baseball field have not been followed appropriately in recent years, a Bay District Schools investigation has found.
An investigation completed this week by Sharon Michalik, the Bay District Schools’ executive director of human resources, alleged that former Arnold baseball coach Mitch Kelly received as much as $125 a day from Grand Slam Tournaments for work performed during baseball tournaments held at Arnold each summer since 2009.
Michalik also found that Kelly and Arnold school officials did not follow district policies relating to the use of school property for events.
“The provisions of School Board Policy 6.501 ... were not followed,” Michalik said in her report. “I found no Facility Use Form for these events, no payments of the fees to the District as required, no hold harmless agreements, no submitted proof of liability insurance policies ... nor any evidence of the presence of a uniformed security officer during the time the baseball field was being used by Grand Slam.”
(Click here to read the report)
Grand Slam CEO Larry Thompson was cited in the report saying that he has utilized the fields at Arnold for “approximately 10-12 days per summer” each year since 2009 at a rate of $125 per day — as much as $1,500 total. The funds were paid in cash each day from the day’s gate receipts, the report said.
“Coach Kelly acknowledges receiving the funds from Grand Slam for services rendered for opening and closing the Arnold facility, preparing and maintaining the fields and facilities, etc., and also noted that the funds were used to compensate himself and other assistant coaches for providing summer baseball coaching services to members of the Arnold team,” the report said.
The report added: “Coach Kelly told me he asked the athletic director about the legality of this type of transaction, and he said she gave him permission to proceed.”
Julie Hale, who was the athletic director at Arnold in 2009, denied ever having that conversation with Kelly. Hale said that fundraisers and tournaments were routed through the principal’s office and not through the athletic director.
Article 29-2 of the Bay District Schools Extracurricular Activities Handbook states: “The fundraising responsibilities for a school shall be the responsibility of the principal and his/her staff. ... Any fundraising activity for a school organization that involves student participation in the selling of tickets, merchandise and similar activities shall have the approval of the principal.”
Hale said rules concerning fundraisers and tournaments were outlined in coaching manuals and in agendas that she provided to every coach.
“When you have a fundraiser and you use the baseball field or the softball field, you have to fill out a facility form,” Hale said. “You got that (form) not from me but from the principal’s secretary, and the principal signed it. The other thing is there was a fundraising authorization form for any time you did a fundraiser. That was a form through the bookkeeper’s office.
“(Coaches) knew they had to go through there, and they had to say if (funds collected) were going to the booster account or the internal account. They had to put what the fundraiser was and what it was used for.”
Thompson said his organization hosts baseball and softball tournaments across the region, and he added that he generally requests the use of a field and offers to make a donation to the program that oversees that facility. Making a donation or a payment in cash is not unusual, he said.
“Whatever they ask us to do,” Thompson said. “I’m not trying to be rude or anything, but from my standpoint we’ve got a great working relationship wherever we’ve been at any school we’ve ever used. When we make a donation to a program or a coach, what they do with that money is none of our business.
“They’re doing us a service, and we’re bringing teams from all over to the local economy and making an impact. ... I feel like the relationship that we have had with all of the local schools has been win-win. I think all of this is much ado about nothing. We will continue to look forward to great working relationships with the schools and look forward to bringing teams to town.”
Members of Arnold’s baseball booster club contend that the field usage fees should be deposited in the boosters’ account or in the team’s internal account rather than forwarded to the coaches because players and their parents also are volunteering hours of their time tending to the field or working in the concession stand during the tournaments.
Arnold, Rutherford and Frank Brown Park will be the site of games for the Grand Slam World Series of Baseball beginning on Monday.
Arnold’s baseball booster club released a statement Thursday contending that Michalik’s report is not entirely accurate. Booster club members declined to speak on the record for this story.
“The Arnold High School Baseball Boosters have just received a copy of the Bay District Schools’ internal investigation report from Sharon Michalik,” the boosters’ statement said. “We are currently communicating with (Michalik) in reference to several report inaccuracies and are providing her with additional information into this ongoing investigation. We would anticipate a revision to Michalik’s report as soon as Monday.”
Attempts on Thursday evening to reach Kelly via phone and text message were unsuccessful.