HIGHLAND, Utah (ABC 4 News) - Money and scandal has formed a black cloud over a championship winning coach at Lone Peak High School. Friday ABC 4’s looked into what’s behind the money.
You can see what Lone Peak High School’s former Football Coach Tony McGeary can do when he's got the players, in 2011 the team won the state championship.
As of last week you can also see how much money he supposedly illegally pocketed money from team. A 42 page complaint accused McGeary of overcharging players for a training camp and keeping $5,735 for himself.
Now because of this financial scandal, the Alpine School District is now implementing a new policy on how coaches and administrators are paid who take students to a training camp.
"All money needs to go through the school, a parent or student should never pay a university directly, money should always go to the school," said Rhonda Bromley, Alpine School District Spokesperson.
Now that the school is responsible, the District tells ABC 4 schools will pay coaches their hourly wage for time spent at the camp. The lowest hourly wage earns roughly $10 an hour, but the highest hourly wage earns roughly $30 an hour.
"Right now no one knows why McGeary supposedly gave himself $5,735. But if you apply the district's new payment policy and compare it to the money earned from last year's training camp you begin to see some perspective. We know assistant coaches at the camp earned roughly $400. If you pay them the lowest hourly wage of $10 an hour, they would've had to work 40 hours at the camp to make what they were paid. Now let's say McGeary earned the highest hourly wage of $30 an hour, he would've had to work 191 hours with the camp to earn what he paid himself,” demonstrated Reporter Brian Carlson.
We know none the money McGeary allegedly paid himself went to transportation. Documents show Lone Peak High School received $2,880. The District tells that went to pay for buses and gas. All these numbers might be confusing. So to avoid this confusion in the future that's why from now on the Alpine School District will now require the school to handle the money and not the coaches.
"We want to protect everyone involved, when it comes to finances we definitely need to do that," said Bromley.
Just comparing salary wages doesn't make coach McGeary guilty, but showing the numbers may add some perspective on how much money he may have actually paid himself, and where the money went and where it didn't go.
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Follow Brian Carlson on Twitter: @tv_briancarlson
