Urban League is on the defensive

(from Seattle PI)

Even before the civil-rights organization was caught up in the Seattle Public Schools' financial scandal, the city had reduced its financial support drastically, killing one big contract and slashing another.

By Jim Brunner

Seattle Times political reporter

It's already been a rough year for the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle.

Even before the venerable civil-rights organization was caught up in the Seattle Public Schools' financial scandal, the city had reduced its financial support drastically, killing one big contract and slashing another.

In January, the city yanked a $500,000-a-year contract for the Urban League's youth-violence prevention work and awarded it to other organizations. The city criticized the Urban League for submitting vague, inaccurate invoices — accusations similar to those raised by auditors in the schools scandal.

The city also cut long-standing financial support of the Urban League's center to help minority small-business owners to get construction contracts, deciding to seek other bidders for the first time in years.

In the midst of all this, longtime President James Kelly stepped down in January, citing health and personal concerns.

The Urban League has been largely silent since the school-district state audit made headlines last week.

Tony Benjamin, the Urban League's acting chief executive, said he's been through a "baptism by fire" and would answer questions at a news conference Wednesday morning. The group has tapped political consultant Cathy Allen for advice.

"We'll address all of that tomorrow," Benjamin said. "Hopefully, it will clear the air."

State audit

Questions about the Urban League's handling of public contracts surfaced in the state audit, which questioned $1.8 million in expenses in Seattle Public Schools' small-business contracting program.

The Urban League was the largest single recipient of that money, receiving nearly $600,000 in contracts that were labeled "questionable uses of public funds" by auditors.

One of the Urban League's big contracts from the city of Seattle was awarded in 2009 as part of then-Mayor Greg Nickels' initiative to tamp down violence after a rash of shootings in Central and South Seattle.

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The no-bid contract paid the Urban League about $900,000 for its work over two years.

As part of the program, the Urban League hired outreach staff to seek out troubled youths and try to reconnect them with schools, jobs and counseling.

But this year, under Mayor Mike McGinn, the city decided to put the contract out for competitive bidding. The Urban League submitted a bid, but the work was awarded to the YMCA and Therapeutic Health Services in January, records show.

"Deficient"

A city evaluation finished last month criticized the Urban League's performance on the contract — rating its performance "below requirements" or "deficient" in 16 of 28 categories.

The harshest grades were for sloppy invoices and budget problems — issues similar to those raised by state auditors with the Urban League's work with the school district.

The organization met the city's contract requirements in 10 categories and was rated "superior" in two — including praise for trying innovative approaches to the violence problem.

Mariko Lockhart, head of the city's Youth Violence Prevention Initiative, described the Urban League's record on the project as mixed.

"They had strong staff. I just think the oversight of it was probably not tight," said Lockhart, describing the organization's invoices and other records as "a mess" — especially after the departure of program coordinator Jamila Taylor.

Taylor, who quit the Urban League last fall, now works on the youth-violence-prevention effort with Therapeutic Health Services.

She said she could not explain the Urban League's difficulties but said the youth-violence effort has paid dividends by reaching at-risk kids.

"We were able to do some very important things to help kids stay out of some trouble," Taylor said.

Even before losing its city contract, there was some indication the Urban League was having financial difficulties. "It was always a rush to make sure we turned around their bill as fast as possible so they could meet their payroll," Lockhart said.

When the city late last year declined to pay the Urban League bonuses of several thousand dollars on the youth-violence effort, the organization complained and threatened to go to the City Council or mayor, Lockhart said.

Second blow

A second blow came when the city drastically cut the Urban League's other major contract that supported its Contractor Development & Competitiveness Center.

The CDCC was created in 2002 to help small minority-owned businesses win construction contracts. The city spent about $480,000 a year between 2003 and 2010 on the CDCC, according to McGinn's office.

That was reduced to $100,000 this year, and city departments were encouraged to seek other competitors to do similar work, Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith said.

Requiring more competitive bidding for contracts "is the direction we're going" with all city services, Smith said.

"It's difficult for the public to buy that you're not going to work your contracts in that way," he said.

CDCC program

The state audit accused the Urban League of overcharging the school district to fund its CDCC program.

Auditors said the school district was overcharged by the Urban League for services that did not benefit the district — including up to $15,000 a month for "general overhead and administration."

The Urban League didn't document how the charges benefitted the school district, but it stated repeatedly that the money was needed "to keep the doors open," auditors said.

The State Auditor's Office now is examining the CDCC as part of its regular audit of the city of Seattle, spokeswoman Mindy Chambers said Wednesday.

10:48 AM | Labels: , | 0 Comments  

Urban League, politicos got school money under investigation

(from SeattlePI)

The Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle and several prominent political figures were among the vendors who received "questionable" payments from a Seattle Public Schools program that is the focus of a criminal investigation.

A probe by the state Auditor's Office into the program revealed $1.5 million for services with a "questionable public purpose" and $280,000 for services that were never provided. The audit has since led to an investigation by Seattle police and the King County Prosecutor's office under a secretive "inquiry judge" process in which witnesses and records can be subpoenaed, according to source in the prosecutor's office.

The investigation is focused on the district's now defunct Regional Small Business Development Program, which was created to encourage small locally-owned minority businesses to bid on school district projects. Small businesses with gross revenue under $1 million qualified for the program.

The program's manager, Silas Potter, resigned June 7 as the investigation was starting. Potter reported to Fred Stephens, the former director of facilities and construction, who resigned from the school district in July and has since been appointed as deputy assistant secretary for administration U.S. Department of Commerce.

The audit faulted Stephens for not adequately supervising the program and not establishing a system of internal controls to guard against waste or misuse. District program staff told auditors the "District did not receive much benefit from work provided by several vendors and that Potter "wanted support from prominent members of the community," according to the audit report.

Despite Potter's resignation, he created his own private company with the same name as the school district's program. He was briefly retained as a consultant for another two weeks. He hired a vendor to write grants for the private company and allegedly defrauded the City of Bellevue, which paid $39, 873 because city officials thought they were participating in district's small business program.

The audit began after district officials received a $35,000 check from Tacoma Public Schools that had been deposited into Potter's company's account. Potter gave the district a $35,000 cashiers check after the district filed a police report, according to the audit.

Names of people and organizations that were hired under the program to provide outreach, instruction, consulting services, marketing and lobbying were not listed in the report. But they were provided to seattlepi.com by the state Auditor's office. Among the names of those were hired as contractors under the program were the Urban League, a former state legislator, a former head of the state Democratic Party and a former Port of Seattle administrator.

In some cases, those hired as contractors were not aware that Potter wasn't authorized to contract with them, according to the report.

"We're not passing judgment on vendors," said Mindy Chambers, a spokeswoman for the state Auditor's Office. "These are places where the district didn't have systems in place to look at what people are being billed for. Whether people were correctly charging for their time or overcharging, will be up to the district to sort out."

Among some of the names and organizations:

  • The Urban League, a nonprofit that provides housing, employment and educational services to minorities and other disadvantaged people , was paid $25,000 for a software subscription fee for a database designed to match small business owners with general contractors. District employees said they never used the database and the vendor reported it was not functional, according to the auditor's report.
  • A consulting firm started by Elaine Ko, former director of social responsibility with the Port of Seattle, received $17,800 to meet with state legislators and conduct community outreach that turned out to be related to Potter's private company.
  • Potter also approved contracts to lobby state legislators when he had no authority to do so. Vendors who were hired included Ko, Charles Rolland, former head of the state Democratic Party and former member of Community and Parents for Public Schools of Seattle; Velma Veloria, former state legislator; and Eddie Rye, who, according to King County's website , is a business leader and community activist who prompted King County to change its logo from the crown to the image of Martin Luther King Jr. They were unaware that Potter had no authority to approve the contracts, according to the report.

    Rolland, Rye, Tony Orange, former executive director of the Washington State Commission on African American Affairs and former head of the Central Area Motivation Program, and Ginny Noble with the Contractors Resource Center, were paid as consultants to attend weekly meetings at the district administrative offices. According to the audit report, the meetings lasted 1.5 hours but the consultants billed the district two to three hours for the meetings.

    Orange also billed $58,000 for outreach and recruitment work in 2009 and 2010 for the district's "Direct Hire and Apprenticeship" program that the Auditor's Office viewed as excessive given only 150 people were recruited, according to the report.

  • The district also paid Rolland at least $6,000 to create and maintain a database for the program that was "not functional" when the district received it. Rolland billed 120 hours to develop the database but it contained only a "list of student names and other identifying information," according to the audit report.

    Among the contracts deemed as losses to the school district:

  • The district paid $163,000 to Grace of Mercy, a nonprofit. The school district paid for classes on dates when no classes were taught. "Class sign-in sheets and class evaluations provided by the District show this vendor attended classes as a student on dates the vendor billed for teaching. The program manager approved the invoices, certifying that services were rendered."
  • Another $78,000 was paid to Banner Cross, which is described as a nonprofit mentoring organization on its website, for instructional services between November 2006 and April 2007, and for "development", including lesson preparation, team meetings, and communications assistance between May 2007 and August 2007, according to the report.

    But, district records "show the classroom reservations scheduled for that time period were canceled in January 2007," according to the audit report. Also, there were no class sign-in sheets for May through August 2007.

    Banner Cross is registered to Dr. Leon "Skip" Rowland, according to the state Auditor's Office. Rowland also is under contract with the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce to serve as executive director of the Urban Enterprise Center, which handles outreach to small, culturally-diverse businesses.

    In a statement, Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson said the school district had since shut down the program and installed tighter financial oversight.

    "I am very angry that any school district employee would consider using this or any other program fraudulently and for their own personal gain. Such a use would be an abuse of taxpayer funds and an appalling violation of our community's trust," she said.

    The school district's general council and school board president Steve Sundquist responded to the audit with a list of bullet points about how the district is trying to fix the problem. Among other steps, the board commissioned an investigation into how funds were mismanaged, appointed an ethics manager to oversee complaints and launched an anonymous hotline that lets district employees and others report fraud and misconduct.

    The statement continued: "We agree that district management failed on several fronts, including lack of employee oversight, failure of internal controls, failure of the internal audit function, and lack of an adequate means for employees to raise their concerns."

    The school board is expected Friday to receive a report from Seattle attorney Patricia Eakes, whom the district hired to review issues raised in the audit, Sundquist told seattlepi.com.

    The report will be discussed Tuesday during a meeting in executive session and then dealt with publicly during next Wednesday's school board meeting, Sundquist said.

    "We're all extremely outraged by it. The whole thing is unacceptable," he said. "We feel a strong commitment to the community to get to the bottom of it. We'll do whatever we need to do to restore public confidence."

    The district is adding a member of the public to its audit committee, and legal counsel has been hired to recover losses from those at fault.

    The criminal investigation into Seattle Public School finances should have no effect on a Seattle levy that would augment education funding, City Councilman Tim Burgess said Wednesday.

    Burgess, the Council lead on the Families and Education levy, said there should be no link between the schools scandal and the separate ballot measure.

    Earlier this month Mayor Mike McGinn announced the proposed $231 million, seven-year levy. If the City Council OKs the measure and it's approved by voters in November, the average household would pay about $134 a year in property taxes. This measure would replace one approved in 2004, a $117 million levy that cost the average household about $65 a year. Funding would be focused on the 23 Title 1 schools in Seattle. Those are schools that meet a federal requirement for additional funding because a high percentage of students come from poorer families. The levy would invest in programs for students from pre-school to high school, including continuing to provide pre-school space, at-home early learning skills, support for at-risk students, summer learning programs and expand school-based health centers.

    "I think, from my perspective, it's full speed ahead on our process of evaluating the levy and taking a (Council) vote later in March," Burgess told seattlepi.com.

    Burgess stressed that any monies spent from the levy would be awarded by and administered by the City, not the school district.

    "Levy funds are spent only after performance-based contracts are awarded. And all levy funds are tied to very specific and measurable outcomes. And we take funds away when our outcomes are not being achieved."

    Burgess added that he was pleased that the School Board has taken quick steps to address the questionable use of funds. "They moved very quickly last year to launch their internal investigation. They notified civil authorities in the King County Prosecutor's office. I just strongly affirm those moves."

    • 10:45 AM | Labels: , | 0 Comments  

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