Cloudy with money: Pay to play perplexes people

Would you ever fund an organization without knowing where your money is going? Every sports season the parents of student athletes must pay $100.00 to have their kids on the team. The funds are given to the county, and the county uses it to cover expenses. The question is:  What are the expenses?
The answer is, we don’t exactly know.
The reality is that families should know what is happening to the money they’re paying to the school system. Is the money funding athletics? Is the money funding academics? No one’s sure. What we do know is that the money collected by the county is not given back to us and the only money our school has to spend are funds collected from admission at sports games.
In the real world, our parents pay bills, taxes and have other expenses, and they know what their money is going towards and who it is going to. Why is there not the same level of transparency with the money that is contributed to the pay to play fee.
Sports are expensive, they require insurance, transportation, coaches, and equipment. So if our money is going towards these expenses, why not just say so.  Parents and student athletes would be much less likely to question the policy and less likely to resent it if they knew how that money was being allocated.
This is especially true since pay to play is not the only money that student athletes have to shell out for their sports.  Often we have to raise extra money to support our sport, and this includes expenses associated with getting physicals, purchasing equipment and spending money for fundraisers like bingo, hosting team dinners, purchasing spirit wear, and more.  While some of these things are voluntary, many are not and that money expended adds up quickly.  Multi-sport athletes find themselves in an even more difficult financial position.
Some might argue that school systems in other States require more money for pay to play and that we are lucky ours isn’t that high. While that is true, it doesn’t erase the fact that we don’t know where our money is going. For example, if all student athletes are paying their dues, why don’t we have enough money to fund turf fields for all high schools in the county?
Parents paying for pay to play just want to know what they are paying for.  So, Harford County Public Schools, we challenge you to let them know.