Manteca Unified Student Trust is a solid non-profit that’s working for kids.

The organization started after budget cuts forced the Manteca Unified School District to eliminate the popular after school elementary sports leagues. It was formed as an independent organization to pick up where the district left off. The district, by the way, still provides $25,000 in financial support but it is a far cry from the days they ran the after school sports programs and were spending in excess of $300,000 a year. The district also makes facilities available for the use of MUST activities.

MUST provides an after school sports leagues such as flag football, basketball, volleyball, and track. MUST helps raise funds for science camp. It is also involved with the successful Veggie Fresh program at the Manteca Unified school farm where students raise and sell their own produce. And they just got through with a successful Planet Party event that provided environmental education to 2,000 sixth graders.

What MUST isn’t good at is transparency. Or more precisely what certain MUST members who have a moral - and probably a legal obligation - to be transparent to taxpayers have failed to do the right thing.

The right thing was to inform the school board - which still supports MUST financially with tax dollars and use of facilities - that they had hired a contracted executive director who also happens to be school board member Wendy King.

King, one of the original founders of MUST along with former school board member and now Stockton City Councilman Dale Fritchen, has been paid for about a year. Her stipend amounts to $20,000 annually.

She was interviewed by a MUST board committee and determined to be the best candidate although at least two MUST board members did concede the position wasn’t widely advertised since she had been doing the tasks in question as a volunteer for years.

By all accounts, she is expected to do 20 hours of work a week but it is actually closer to 30 hours or more. The expectation was that one of her duties - grant writing - would at least bring in what she is being paid. She also spends time organizing leagues, volunteers, and paid coaches and officials. There is also a fundraising component and direction to expand into other areas besides sports such as the arts and science.

Part of what King is doing she was doing as a volunteer for a number of years. As MUST grew, its board felt there was a need to make sure it could keep up with the demand. And obviously that isn’t always possible for an all volunteer group to do.

And while all indications are King is doing for the most part what she is supposed to be doing, it doesn’t look good in the perception department and even possibly in the realm of state conflict of interest laws although hired district legal counsel doesn’t quite see it that way.

First, there is the issue of tax dollars either directly committed or through reduced or free facility charges.

The chairman of the MUST board is a district level employee - Roger Goatcher. The secretary is Faustina Rosas who happens to be district superintendent Jason Messer’s secretary. And among the other board members for MUST is Messer himself. The majority of the MUST board are district employees. Although it is stressed they are all serving not as district representatives but because of their individual concern for kids, it does understandably create a perception issue.

To understand why it may not seem kosher at first glance, King is one of seven elected board members who collectively are Messer’s boss. Messer is the boss of the majority of the MUST board. Messer as a member of the MUST board is one of 14 people who collectively are King’s boss.

How this all came to light was that Manteca Unified board member Don Scholl – doing what board members should do – was asking questions and found out King was being paid. Scholl believes this appears to be a conflict if interest hence the item is on this Tuesday’s Manteca Unified School District board agenda.

Taxpayers should have every expectation at Tuesday’s meeting that assurances are made that King has - or will - report the income on her conflict of interest forms. And while she abstained earlier this school year on a board level MUST-related vote, she needs to make sure she continues to do so.

And while the district’s legal counsel’s  opinion is one thing, the state Attorney General’s office should be asked to render a legal opinion as well about the entire thing especially King receiving payment from an organization that accepts $25,000 from the school district. The Attorney General’s office also needs to weigh in on the entire relationship between a district superintendent being part of a non-profit board that hired a school board member as an executive director when district tax dollars are involved even if Messer is doing so as a private citizen. It is a far better way to put any public concerns of perceived conflict at rest if the state Attorney General’s staff says it is OK than simply a hired legal gun that also happens to be on the district payroll.

The entire MUST thing is a much different animal than King’s questioning a few years back of the legality of fellow school board member Manuel Medeiros serving on both the Lathrop Manteca Fire District board and the Manteca Unified school board.

It is highly unlikely that MUST isn’t doing what MUST has indicated it would do as an organization. There are however, some serious questions about relationships that at the very least may reek of the perception of being a conflict and at the worst may actually violate the letter of state law.

That is why total disclosure is needed. And while there is no reason to doubt the sincerity or the job that Messer does for the youth of this school district in any capacity that he is in whether it is Give Every Child a Chance, district superintendent or on the MUST board, it might be best that he step away from the MUST board at least while one of his seven bosses is in the paid position of executive director.

Messer has contributed significantly to the success of organization such as Give Every Child a Chance and MUST. But as long as MUST is receiving $25,000 from the district in combination with one of his seven bosses being the paid executive director of MUST, it might be best that he is not part of the organization’s governing board.

Any whiff of impropriety can hurt the good that a group such as MUST does. It also can damage the relatively sterling reputation that Messer enjoys which is critical for Manteca Unified as it forges the uncharted waters of continuing state budget cuts that will force even more trying challenges for the school district.