Lance,

Richard Salyer posted an abbreviated version of our financial report. As he said, this financial report is presented to all of the clubs at each years' state body meeting and members are walked through the numbers and encouraged to ask any questions. I then post the financials on the website - you can pull up last year's report by clicking on the "General Info" link at the left and going to the "Other" section.

Included in the financial report, under the section "Office" is $5,663 for contract labor. Of this amount, $592 was for legal fees paid in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a group exemption for our clubs from the IRS (an item that was discussed in detail at the last two state body meetings). The remaining amount was paid to Kathy for her work for USAW-Kansas. Kathy did receive a form 1099 at the end of the year, as did anyone else who received more than $600 in compensation during the year.

Although you may not have been aware of the payments to Kathy, I would also suggest that there are many other things being done by our state that you and many others may not be aware of. I don't think this is because anyone is trying to hide anything, but simply because most people are selective about the issues they are willing to take the time to become fully educated about. This is the purpose of the selection of officers and directors. It was these representative were the ones who originally made the decision to begin compensating Kathy for her work. If you do not believe that your representatives are doing their job, then you should seek to get new people in their place.

If your complaint is with me specifically, I am elected directly by the officers of USAW-Kansas, Inc. Most of these officers come from elections at the district and state body meetings, so that's the place to start. I genuinely believe that I have been instrumental in helping make Kansas a great place for wrestling, in large part by doing everything I can to facilitate the great volunteers that we have throughout our state. I would not continue to hold this position if I didn’t believe this, and would hope that your representatives would not keep me in office if they thought differently.

Currently, I believe that we have a diversified group of people serving as directors and officers of our organization who are all deeply interested in doing what's best for wrestling in Kansas. You may not agree with them; heck, most of the time they don't agree with each other, but it would be wrong to believe that they are not as enthusiastic about USAW-Kansas and its members as you or anyone else.