Limestone County Gold Card holders can anticipate paying a one-time fee for the admission passes after school board members discussed the issue Tuesday at their regularly scheduled meeting.

The cards allowing free admission to sporting events are for anyone 65 and older, and the cards cost nothing right now except a trip to the central office.

Limestone County Superintendent Dr. Tom Sisk said the issue revolved around the costs and expenses associated with athletic programs. School principals and athletic directors expressed concern about the cards because the only standard for obtaining or using a card is the age limit, meaning more than one person is likely using the card.

“We don’t know if there’s a problem, but we suspect … people are passing it to others who don’t meet 65 (years or older) age requirement,” he said. “We are not out to inconvenience anybody but we are out to hold people accountable.”

Board member Earl Glaze suggested charging a one-time $10 fee for the cards, beginning as early as Oct. 1.

Board members and Limestone County transportation director Rusty Bates exchanged suggestions, ranging from asking for photo identification when the cards are presented to making the cards have a picture of the card carrier on them.

Bates said over the course of years, the school system could be losing hundreds to thousands of dollars from the misuse of the cards.

“We’ve discovered through the course of going through this that a lot of people are coming to the central office with Mom or Dad’s license and saying they couldn’t come in because of the two steps (leading to the building),” he said. “We’ve found out there’s a lot of loop holes we didn’t know about. People pass on and move off, and they give (the cards) to their neighbors. We have no way of tracking them — they’re not numbered — we don’t know the extent of the problem we have.”

Parking and ball game admission increases

Board members also discussed charging for parking at ball games in efforts to help fund athletic programs. Right now there is no charge for games against schools in the same county and non-county games are $3, Bates said.

He said school principals discussed the matter at the same meeting they discussed Gold Cards and agreed a parking fee is one of the biggest ways to make money.

“One reason we haven’t done that (in the past) is because we want to give locals a break whenever we can and that’s one way to give them a break,” Bates said. “Practically everywhere we go, it’s $5 to park. Everywhere we go, principals will tell you $5 is the standard. We’re actually cheaper and we’re only doing this half the time.”

Glaze asked if the football program would be the only athletic program benefitting from the parking fee and was not met with a set answer. School administrators mentioned to board members that the football program is typically more to maintain because of equipment and utility cost.

Board members made no vote on the matter and agreed to table both the Gold Card and fee increase issues for later discussion.

CHOW bus parks for the year

The Combating Hunger on Wheels bus is parked for the year after serving 13,967 meals during June and 7,856 meals in July on a reduced schedule, making for a total of 21,823 meals given to children during the summer while they were out of school.

Sisk said the cost to the school system was 91 cents per meal with a reimbursement of $3.13.

“We did not lose any money,” he said.