$10,000 given to a Hagerstown Little League all-star team might not have been legal

Hagerstown has an all-star Little League team in the Little League World Series currently under way in scenic Williamsport, Pennsylvania.  People around here are very excited about this.  Some are more excited then others. I’m not really into Little League. I never played Little League.  No one in my family played Little League.  I really don’t necessarily understand the hoopla.

Speaking of things I don’t understand, the Washington County commissioners decided to award the team $10,000. This is from today’s Herald-Mail:

The money was approved by a 3-1 vote to help pay travel expenses for the Federal Little League 11-12 All Stars, who recently won the Mid-Atlantic Regional tournament and played their first game in the Little League World Series on Saturday.

This didn’t make any sense. I remember reading a while back that ABC and ESPN agreed to a long term deal with Little League for the rights to televise the Little League World Series. The deal was for millions of dollars. With all that money going to Little League, why can’t Little League pay for the travel expenses incurred by the team?

As it turns out, they do. From the official Little League website:

Who pays for the teams to travel to the Little League Baseball World Series?
There is no fee of any kind for any team in the Little League Baseball World Series. Neither the parents nor the local league are asked to pay anything for the team’s expenses.

All of the expenses for all teams, including travel, are paid by Little League International. While here, the teams are housed in dormitories on our complex, and food is provided at no charge. All teams are provided with exactly the same accommodations, without regard to their economic status.

So what’s the $10,000 going to?

It also appears that the money given to the team by the Washington County commissioners came from the “wrong” account.  It was supposedly taken from an account funded solely by a special county tax applied to area hotel rooms.  This money by law is to be only used to help develop tourism and support cultural and recreational projects in Washington County.  Paying for the out-of-state travel expenses of an all-star Little League team does not fall within the law.

One way to solve this problem would be for the three Washington County commissioners that voted to award the team with a $10,000 gift — Commissioners President John F. Barr, Vice President Terry L. Baker and Commissioner James F. Kercheval — pay the money out of their own pockets.  If they think the Little League all-star team deserves some extra travel money on top of what Little League is already providing, they each can come up with $3,333.33 on their own and award that to the team.  That way the team still gets the extra travel money and not one dime of tax dollars is spent.

It’s a win-win situation.

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