Poor Governance at its Best

by Gary Snyder

This agency distributed checks that weren’t legitimate. Work was not performed. The phone numbers were fictitious, disconnected or belonged to someone else. The Seattle Aging and Disability Services kept doling out over $91,000 for those that were to receive services from the Kinship Care program for Senior Services.

It took an anonymous tip to the city Human Services Department that got an investigation rolling. No city employees were implicated in the alleged theft, but four were disciplined for not adequately investigating complaints of fraud in the city-funded program with at least two leaving. One city employee even gave the perpetrators advance notice that there had been a fraud allegation and that she would be examining invoices and spending. She was terminated.

The Kinship Caregiver program, which provided support to seniors who had sudden responsibility for their grandchildren, is now being managed by Catholic Community Services. (link)

Nonprofit Imperative gathers its information principally from public documents...some of which are directly quoted. Virtually all cited are in some phase of criminal proceedings; some have not been charged, however. Cites in various media: Featured in print, broadcast, and online media outlets, including: Vermont Public Radio, Miami Herald, National Public Radio, Huffington Post, The Sun News, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Wall Street Journal (Profile, News and Photos), FOX2, ABC Spotlight on the News, WWJ Radio, Ethics World, Aspen Philanthropy Newsletter, Harvard Business Review, Current Affairs, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, St. Petersburg Times, B, USA Today Topics, , Newsweek.com, Responsive Philanthropy Magazine, New York Times...and many more • Nonprofits: On the Brink (iUniverse, 2006)