Team posed as charity to save cash

District aims to recoup funds after investigation

A semi-professional basketball team misrepresented itself as a youth charity to get discounted use of Palm Beach County high school gyms, a district investigation has found.

Now the school district is trying to recoup $10,584 from the South Florida Gold, a two-year-old, forprofit team that charges fans for tickets.

A report by the district’s Inspector General’s Office says the team played games in November and December 2013 at Royal Palm Beach High and Olympic Heights High, west of Boca Raton. The Gold held try-outs, practices and games at Boynton Beach High from June to December 2014. They leased the facilities at half the normal rate by using the tax identifications of two non-profit groups, the investigation found.

The non-profits, Mentoring Valuable Proteges, a Miami-based youth athletic group, and Stop Bullying Now, based in North Palm Beach, said they partnered with the Gold after being promised the team would raise money for them.

“They used me to get the discount,” said Lowell Levine, CEO of Stop Bullying Now. “There were no fundraisers, no promotions on their website, nothing, zero.”

Ingrid Gilliam-Alexander, co-founder of the mentoring group, said her group also was misled. She said she agreed to partner in hopes of increasing exposure in Palm Beach County.

“They signed the leases under our names and we weren’t even aware of it,” she said.

Jonathan Lederman, the team’s public address announcer and ambassador, said the team never entered into any agreements involving non-profit groups without their knowledge.

“We partner with many, many different charities to help us,” he said. “If we partner with an anti-bullying group, we try to be of service and help that organization. They get the benefit of being associated with a professional basketball team. We get the benefit of being able to utilize gyms at discounted rates.”

But whether or not the charities agreed to the arrangement, it is against school district policies.

The school district is now conducting an administrative investigation of school employees who agreed to the leasing arrangements, district spokeswoman Kathy Burstein said this week. The district is also retraining employees on lease rules.

“Schools can only accept a non-profit lease signed by a corporate officer listed on the entity’s latest corporate filing,” she said.

Palm Beach County school district policies also require agencies using their facilities to be insured for liability. The investigation found the basketball team took out an insurance policy for both non-profit groups, with a team officer falsely posing as an officer of each organization, the investigation found.

An assistant principal at Olympic Heights told investigators the team never paid the $780 it owed for a December gym rental.

When the administrator learned the team planned to make Boynton Beach High its permanent home for the 2014-15 season, she tried to warn an assistant principal about the team’s debt, the investigation states. School district policy prohibits a group from using school facilities if they have unpaid leasing fees in the district.

“Although she spoke to an office employee at the Boynton Beach Adult and Community Education Office and a message was left, no return call was received … acknowledging the message,” the investigation states.

The district’s Audit Committee is expected to review the report Thursday.

The Gold, which plays from November to March, is affiliated with the American Basketball Association, a reincarnation of the old professional league known for its red and white balls and fastpaced games. It’s one of two teams in South Florida, the other being the Miami Midnites, based in Davie.

The school district evicted the Gold in January and has banned it from using any district facilities. The team played most of its remaining games at the Parkland YMCA, according to its Facebook page.