16837: (hermantin)Palm Beach Post-Haitian center's grant money on hold (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Friday, September 26
Haitian center's grant money on hold


By Gariot Louima, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 26, 2003



Despite questionable financial practices, the largest agency serving
Haitians in Palm Beach County will receive close to $700,000 in grants from
an agency that investigated it.

But most of the money won't be immediately available to the Haitian Center
for Family Services because its directors have not fully addressed its
problems, said Tana Ebbole, chief executive officer of the Children's
Services Council.

The council launched an investigation of the Haitian center after a former
employee complained of nepotism, fiscal mismanagement and a breakdown of the
agency's governing body.

So far, the center's board of directors have not tackled a 45-point
corrective action plan, and will only receive enough money for the first
three months of the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, Ebbole said. The rest of
the money will be released when the problems are resolved.

Newly elected board Chairman David Harris sent his response to the council's
report shortly before a meeting with a review panel Thursday.

"This is just a bump in the road. It's not terminal for us," said Harris,
director of the MacArthur Foundation of Florida and a former member of the
Children's Services Council board.

It was one of four nonprofits to go before the council panel Thursday. All
of those agencies had either program or financial problems. But the Haitian
Center's were the most egregious.

An August review found:


•
For several months, former board President Patrick Leconte paid his
brother's consulting firm, of which he is affiliated, close to $34,500.


•
The list of board members on a January business report included individuals
who never sat on the board, a man who died months before and a man who
resigned in July 2001.


•
Board members and employees used the center as a personal bank, routinely
taking personal loans. Leconte, who wrote himself a $5,000 check, has yet to
repay the money.

Leconte resigned from the board Wednesday, Harris said. And three additional
board members have been installed. Leconte's brother, Thierry, remains as
the interim executive director.

Ebbole said she is relieved the center's administrative problems have not
affected the services it offers. But if those problems aren't resolved, the
programs can be moved to another agency, she warned.

Still, some in the community, including a former board member, say the
center cannot properly serve the community under its current leadership.

Roody Barthelemy, listed as a board member two years after his resignation,
stressed the importance of improving the center's image before the
commemoration of Haiti's Bicentennial in January.

"We need a center whose image is cohesiveness and unity, not fraud and
divisions," he said.

Thierry Leconte said he won't leave the center. He said the center will
launch a national search for a permanent executive director and he might
apply for the job.

The West Palm Beach-based center has a $2.1 million annual budget, close to
triple the budget of the better-known Haitian American Community Council in
Delray Beach.

This week, the county Community Services Department, which gave the Haitian
Center $1.03 million this year through a federal grant, found eight clients
in an AIDS housing program were improperly charged from $250 to $300 each
month for rent, though the county paid the rents.

The agency has 90 days to reimburse the clients -- a total of $ 4,951 -- and
furnish copies of the front and back of canceled checks as proof of
repayment, said program manager Christine Carroll. If the money is not
returned, the center could lose its grant.

Thierry Leconte declined to comment on the county's findings.

gariot_louima@pbpost.com

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