BY DANI TIETZ
dani@mahometnews.com
Sunny McMurray and Lisa Frerichs asked the Mahomet-Seymour School board to investigate M-S PTO’s Corresponding Executive Ken Keefe’s use of credit cards to pay for Dawg Walk prizes during the fall of 2018.
McMurray began the discussion by citing her professional experience, that she has children in the school district and all of the organizations she has volunteered for.
She turned to Mahomet-Seymour Board Policy 8:90, which states that non-profit organizations and booster clubs that wish to use the district name or logo have bylaws that include: the organization’s or club’s name and purpose, rules and procedures under which it operates, an agreement to adhere to all Board policies and administrative procedures, a statement that membership is open and unrestricted, a statement that the District is not, and will not be, responsible for the organization’s or club’s business or the conduct of its members, an agreement to maintain and protect its own finances, a recognition that money given to a school cannot be earmarked for any particular expense.
“I’m asking for your guidance and assistance with a concern that has recently been made public regarding a major district fundraiser and the Mahomet-Seymour parent-teacher organization,” McMurray said.
In July, McMurray began asking the M-S PTO questions regarding the financial information published on their website. She then took to Facebook in early August to continue the discussion.
McMurray wanted to know how much money the school actually receives from the Dawg Walk fundraiser. McMurray was under the assumption that 100-percent of funds student raise go back to the school district within the year it was raised.
Since 2017, the M-S PTO has posted their financial information online. To date, the M-S PTO is the only non-profit organization to do this. Their standard practice is to post transactions shortly after they happen.
In looking at the financial statement, McMurray learned that in 2018, the M-S PTO spent almost $30,000 for supplies, including t-shirts, prizes, printing and “slime,” among others.
McMurray said only $75,000 went back to the schools.
“That’s not 100-percent,” she said.
She then asked the PTO why they went $11,000 over their projected budget in 2018.
McMurray said the answer she got from the PTO was that they wanted to get better prizes.
“While I think that is a noble goal that’s not something that should for the fundraiser $11,000 over budget, and quite a bit is already set aside for that purpose. Pre-planning and communication are critical to the success of a fundraiser,” she said.
In 2017, the PTO went from using t-shirts as the main fundraising prize to purchasing t-shirts for all students in grades K-5 for the Dawg Walk celebration. In order to encourage donation participation, the PTO decided to offer more desirable prizes, such as headphones and durable water bottles.
McMurray’s last question to the PTO was in regard to Ken Keefe’s approximately $26,000 in reimbursement checks. Keefe was the chair of the Dawg Walk in 2018.
McMurray said that the answer she received was that the 2018 PTO president said that it was easier for Keefe to purchase them, but at a PTO board meeting on August 8, they explained that Keefe is an appointed member, and only the elected members have access to the checks and debit cards.
The board said that there wasn’t a decision to go $11,000 over the projected budget, but as prize orders came in as students donated money, the prizes needed to be purchased. Keefe made the purchases, then was reimbursed.
At the August 19, 2019 meeting McMurray suggested that the PTO could use companies that take purchase orders if they cannot use their own debit card at the time of purchase.
At the PTO meeting, Keefe admitted that he did receive cash back and airline miles from his purchases, but did not know, at the time how much he received.
Since the Aug. 19 meeting, Keefe said that the difference between the cash back and airline miles he received is approximately $130 in the PTO’s favor after his website payment donations.
This amount does not include the donations he has made to his children’s fundraising efforts, from which they received prizes.
Both McMurray and Frerichs said that they have had their name dragged through the mud for asking hard questions about the PTO’s practices and Keefe’s reimbursements.
In a room where only Keefe, the PTO’s Corresponding Executive, was present, both McMurray and Frerichs cautioned the PTO that they could lose their not-for-profit status when private benefit to members is incurred.
“My goal at this point is to turn this issue over to you so PTO could start their fundraising season on a positive note with honest and transparent marketing and no skeletons in their closet.”
McMurray asked if the district administration and board could look into the issue.
“I ask for your assistance and further clarifying the financial records of the M-S PTO,” McMurray said. “As a member of the PTO and a concerned parent and a voter in our school district to determine if anything inappropriate occurred with the fundraising dollars from last year’s fundraiser.
“I’m also asking for your help in ensuring that if anything unethical did occur, that something either intentionally or unintentionally, that the situation was rectified.
“I’m hopeful that with the members of the school board looking more closely at what may have happened last year and possibly during previous years, the donors will feel more comfortable knowing where to go with their money and will be more likely to continue to support our schools.”
Frerichs went a step further, asking for Keefe’s resignation from the Mahomet-Seymour School Board and asking that the board suspend the member that was elected on April 2, 2019 until they can look into the allegations against him.
Frerichs said that at the PTO board meeting, Keefe said “yes,” when he was asked if he believed what he did was ethical. The Mahomet Daily was at that meeting, and Keefe said “sure” when asked that question.
She went on to say that she asked if Keefe would do it again. Frerichs stated that Keefe said, “yes” when asked that question, but after review of the meeting, the Mahomet Daily found that Frerichs did not ask the question, and Keefe never said he would.
Frerichs also said that she asked how the decision to spend $11,000 over budget came to be, and the PTO said that it just happened, and did not take a vote to allow it to happen. The exchange did happen at the PTO meeting, but Frerichs told the Mahomet-Seymour School Board that the PTO did not have an inventory for the prizes or if any were returned, which would benefit Keefe.
The PTO did answer Frerichs question during their meeting, stating that there is a storage shed with extra inventory from each year that has been accounted for and is used to benefit students who may not have had a chance to participate in Dawg Walk throughout the year.
Frerichs also said that she asked for the Dawg Walk receipts and did not get them. The receipts were shown on the whiteboard for the public at the PTO meeting, which was held at the Mahomet Public Library. According to the PTO, Frerichs also received a Dawg Walk Expense excel sheet, a 2018-2019 M-S PTO transactions pdf and a pdf with Dawg Walk Receipts with redacted personal information.
The Mahomet Daily is also in possession of these documents.
“Many have applauded Ken for carrying the PTO and being able to make quick decisions to buy all these prizes on his own credit card,” Frerichs said. “The proper way to purchase these items is through a check written from the PTO, to the school district and a PO use directly to the vendor.
“Because Ken has been on the PTO for five years, he should be quite familiar with this process.”
Frerichs cited the time she spends volunteering in the schools and the amount of money she donates before talking about the concerned parents and citizens who continue to encourage her “to continue pushing, to continue asking the hard questions, to continue pursuing the truth has kept me focused and finding the answers.
“I ask you to do the same: keep asking the hard questions to pursue the truth, make sure the person is sitting next to you on the school board is someone you can fully trust to make a solid decision and not put the school board in jeopardy by acting in an unethical manner.”
After board comment where president Max McComb read a response to Keefe’s Illinois Attorney General complaint against the Mahomet-Seymour School board for Open Meetings Act violations and Lori Larson’s comment on positives she witnessed at the beginning of the school year, Meghan Hennesy chimed in with her thoughts on the PTO conversation.
“I think is really important is that you then the school board and the school district have absolutely no oversight of the PTO whatsoever,” Hennesy said. “The PTO is a separate organization they have separate rules and guidelines, and we don’t have any jurisdiction over them.”
Hennesy, a former PTO member and president, cautioned the board to go in and tell people what to do.
“We have lots of organizations working really hard for kids in this district, raise lots of money: we have booster organizations, we have PTO, we have music organizations and those are all organizations run on the backs of volunteers. Having been one of those volunteers, I’ll tell you it’s a handful to a dozen, if you’re lucky.
Hennesy said it was not within the district or board’s jurisdiction to tell organizations with board’s how to operate, and she said it might affect the number of volunteers the organization gets.
Hennesy said it’s also not who the Mahomet-Seymour community is.
“We’re supposed to be in a community where we believe the best in people,” she said.
As a former member of the PTO and leader of the Dawg Walk, Hennesy said that the practice of purchasing Dawg Walk prizes before the student’s money came in to ensure that the prizes arrived on time has been commonplace in the PTO long before she was involved.
“In terms of going over budget, budgets are fluid. Before I was on the PTO it was very consistently the PTO budget for Dawg Walk was between $25,000 to $35,000 because that’s what it costs,” she said. “You can’t run an event on no money, that doesn’t make any sense.”
Hennesy said that teachers and students benefit greatly from the work the volunteer community does each year.
“If we start to believe the worst of volunteers who have put in 120 to 180 hours of work in a two-month period to put on a fundraiser like that, we won’t have that fundraiser and our kids and our teachers are going to miss out on the benefits of that.
“Maybe we need to move forward and really understand that people in this district are working in the best interests of kids, we should find a little bit of grace when possible and assume the best in people,” she said. “We are setting an example for our children. and I think they will model what it is that we do and I think that’s really important.”
Keefe said that the PTO invited the public to their August meeting, and answered all questions during that time.
Keefe said that as the treasurer in 2016, he was the one who pushed the PTO to make their finances public on the web.
“If I was in the mindset of trying to swindle the PTO, that would be a very foolish mistake to make to publish these all online and available,” Keefe said. “They went up as soon as the Dawg Walk concluded, so it’s incorrect to say that.
“Furthermore, it’s certainly incorrect because in December Dr. Hall and Mr. Nuxoll met with the PTO to discuss these issues.”
Superintendent Lindsey Hall and Chief School Business Official Trent Nuxoll met with the PTO on May 3 and May 30 regarding this issue.
Keefe said he believes something else is going on with the continued questioning, though.
“I’m really disappointed that you guys are continuing this,” he said. “It’s been made clear to the public that this is a farce. I strongly encourage you to reevaluate the people the person that has set you onto this trail, think about what it is they are encouraging you to do and what their goals may be.”
“It’s disappointing that you’re being used to harm the PTO to try and harm me and that individual is remaining untouched.”
Frerichs and McMurray, sitting in the back of the room at this point, said that they were not being encouraged by anyone, but acting on their own.
Schultz said that the board has enough of its own work to do.
“As I sit here I am overwhelmed with the things that are our jurisdiction,” Schultz said. “I am overwhelmed with the amount of work to do for our district, the amount of great things we want to do for kids.
“And we need to not take on more, which the PTO is not our jurisdiction. It’s not the administrators’ jurisdiction, it’s not the board’s jurisdiction.
“It’s the jurisdiction of the PTO because they’re their own entity. They have a board and that’s the board that needs to investigate them. This is the board that needs to talk about the school district.”
After listening to both the PTO discussion and the OMA complaint, board member Jeremy Henrichs talked about the presumption of innocence.
“I’m telling you this, there is not there isn’t anybody who is violating open meetings act purposefully; there was no intent. I was present for the past year. So we’re coming in with the presumption someone’s guilty, questioning their honor and you do something like that and then we’re supposed to presume you’re innocent?
“Fine. I don’t know if you’re innocent or not, but don’t come in here tell me I’m a liar. I mean this is ridiculous.”
