Lisbon Schools has enacted a new protocol for concession stands this school year.
Superintendent Autumn Pino said she and new activities director Brandon Horman worked on implementing the new cash handling procedures.
“We wanted to have good, sound practices for cash management in place,” Pino said. “Brandon reached out for feedback from other activities directors and administrators for how they run their own cash handling procedures.”
The practices have been in place since the start of the new sporting season.
With the procedures, money collected at gates is counted by the administration or event manager and a second person to verify the count. The groups fill out a cash receipt form and both verify they are accurate. The cash box is then given to a school administrator to be deposited in a timely manner by a school official and certified by business manager Laurie Maher.
The procedure is also similar for concession stand revenues – the till is counted by two individuals, a cash receipt is filled out and verified by those individuals and given to an administrator to be safely secured until it is deposited. The new procedures are posted for people running the gate or concession stands.
Pino, Horman and Maher will also conduct quarterly reviews of concession stand revenues to identify trends, discuss findings and determine any course of action that is needed to be taken to keep the profit margins.
Maher said in other districts, concession stands are run by Booster Clubs, not the school themselves.
“There are agreements that have to be made ahead of time with those agreements,” Maher said. “Concessions are a main money maker for our activities fund.”
Maher said there has been a lot of work and discussions ahead of rolling out these new cash handling procedures for the district.
Board member Allan Mallie said he really appreciates everything Pino and Horman have done on this effort.
“It’s not an easy job, and our actions may not appease everyone,” Mallie said.
Pino said she also wants to remind people that it can be hard to judge the profit margins of concession stands.
“We may have bought buns in one quarter and freeze them until the start of the next sporting season,” Pino said. “Those expenses were made in the last quarter, but they are still things we’re making money off in the next quarter. It can make looking at the activities fund harder to do.”
Pino said that she also thinks having more sets of eyes on the fund is beneficial, and will help the school make adjustments to finding things that are working well or if they need to seek other vendors for items.
“The cost of goods for concession stands are also not going down,” said Jen Caspers, board president.