Academic Decathlon Will Be Held Despite Financial Woes

This season’s Academic Decathlon state championship will go on as scheduled despite the organization’s financial troubles, officials said Thursday.

“Absolutely, there will be a state competition this year,” said Marvin Cobb, executive director of the California Academic Decathlon.

In a meeting held by telephone conference call Thursday, the organization’s board of directors voted unanimously to go ahead with the competition, scheduled for March 10-13 in Los Angeles, Cobb said.

That is in part because of an outpouring of offers to help since the organization went public with its crisis and in part because the board felt strongly about the value of having a contest, even a bare-bones one, he said.

The winning high school team will go on to the national finals in Chicago in April. Without a state contest, there would be no California team in the national competition.

In a Nov. 14 story in The Times, Cobb and others in the organization outlined difficulties with fundraising that had threatened to put the competition out of business just as high schools all over California were choosing teams and beginning a school year of rigorous study for the event.

“A number of individuals and businesses have since come forward,” Cobb said. “I don’t have the checks yet, but we are in active talks about donations. I am very grateful to all of them.”

The Academic Decathlon, possibly the best known of all high school scholar competitions, was founded in California in 1968 and operates in 40 states.

It includes students of all ability levels. Coaches and parents say they have seen C students transformed into serious scholars and good students develop even better study and communications skills through the experience.

The organization depends on private fundraising for most of its $250,000 annual budget, and it has fallen far short in recent years. Cobb, who took the helm three years ago, blamed a sluggish economy and flagging support from the business community.

In another development Thursday, the state attorney general’s office sent a letter warning the Academic Decathlon organization that it had missed deadlines to file required financial statements, including copies of IRS-required reports dating back to 2000.

It faces fines and other penalties if the documents are not submitted within 30 days, the letter said.

Cobb said some of his board members had been aware that he had not filed the documents, citing lack of an assistant to help him.

“All the information is here; I just need someone who can put it into a report,” Cobb said.

He said the board decided Thursday to have one of its members, an accountant, work with Cobb on the books until a part-time office assistant could be found.

Cobb said he works in a donated office in the San Fernando Valley, without any other staff members. He draws a salary of $65,000 a year but said he had not been paid in six weeks.

The organization spent about $50,000 on last year’s state championship in Sacramento, Cobb said, and still owes about $10,000 of that.