A proposal requiring public schools to accept legal tender as a form of payment into an extracurricular interscholastic athletic contest or competition sponsored by an extracurricular interscholastic athletic organization advanced through a Senate subcommittee on Monday.
Senate File 2072 also requires an extracurricular interscholastic athletic organization to accept legal tender as a form of payment for entry into a contest or competition sponsored by the organization.
Michelle Johnson of the Iowa Association of School Boards said the organization is undecided and would prefer local control in most situations, but accepting cash doesn’t seem too hard.
Dave Daughton of the Rural School Advocates of Iowa and School Administrators of Iowa said he sees both sides of the issue. Daughton said he’d like the schools to be able to control whether they accept cash or not on their own.
Sara Ferneding, a concerned citizen, spoke in support of the bill. She said her local district has switched to a cashless system for entry and it is “very cumbersome.”
Ferneding said she prefers to use cash and doesn’t like the data mining that goes on with credit cards. Fees for using credit cards also increase the cost.
“It’s a legal form of payment,” Ferneding said. “Why would we have to go somewhere and not be allowed to pay with a legal form of currency in our state? I am very much for this bill so that we can pay with cash if we so wish.”
Democrat State Sen. Claire Celsi said she believes the state has more important things going on than this.
“I prefer local control always,” she said. “But I don’t really have any huge objections. I think our society is going this way, so it’s just going to be a matter of time before everybody has to comply in some way.”
Celsi added the grocery store she goes to doesn’t accept debit cards.
“You just have to deal with it sometimes,” she added.
Republican State Senators Jesse Green and Kerry Gruenhagen supported the bill and moved it to full committee.
The Iowa Standard reached out to the Iowa High School Athletic Association to see how this bill would impact state tournaments, but we haven’t received a response.
