Tillicum community center board still fighting to keep facility open
"We have had a huge endeavor. We had to take care of restoring everything," said
That includes working with the
The center's nonprofit status was restored at the end of 2014, an essential step to receive funding. In the past year, the center board also has "reconstructed" its financial records.
Still, Padden said, "there is no money that we could pay anything that is delinquent or otherwise."
"We're keeping the lights on and there's toilet paper in the bathrooms," she said. "It's difficult to have a big projection at this point without any immediate and hard funding coming in."
Nevertheless, board members are determined that the facility remain open to serve one of
The center at
Now
In a
She also asked for the center's operating budget for 2015 and proposed budget for 2016.
It's unusual for the county to do this, but recent events prompted the request, said
CONCERNS IDENTIFIED
The audit showed a board that trusted its executive director to manage daily operations and center finances with little oversight.
Violations identified in the audit included the missed payroll taxes and a lack of background checks on volunteers and staff members. It also noted a lapse in multiple insurance policies, including for a center-owned vehicle sometimes used to take senior citizens to and from the center.
The report also cited more than
The center still owes
These violations and others resulted in the termination of the contract.
The contract was only
For 14 years, it relied on federal grant money from the city of
In
The loss of the major funding sources and the severity of noncompliance from the initial audit prompted Howell to request the second visit.
This time the county will review its long-term real estate contract with the board. The agreement stipulates how the center should be used and grants ownership of the building to the board in 2024.
FINANCIAL DISCREPANCIES
The board didn't learn the extent of mismanagement until it took over operations last spring after firing executive director
Priest was fired in May because of personal theft charges filed against her in
The personal theft charges against Priest were dismissed in August after she agreed to participate in a pretrial diversion program. If she follows its requirements, Priest will avoid conviction.
By summer, community center board members believed Priest's financial troubles extended to her management of the center.
In
The board found
Police investigated whether Priest used the center's credit cards for personal purchases and whether she overpaid her salary.
Payroll receipts show that one year Priest paid herself
Poor record keeping, including missing credit card statements and a lack of receipts and reimbursement requests, made it hard for investigators to determine criminal activity.
County prosecutors declined to file charges against Priest in February.
"It was unclear what purchases were legitimate and what purchases weren't legitimate," deputy prosecutor
Priest's employment contract authorized her to give herself a raise, making it hard to prove she illegally overpaid herself, Peters said.
Charges could still be filed if the board completes a professional forensic audit and it shows misappropriations, he said.
REBUILDING
Board members know restoring the center will take more than fixing messy bookkeeping.
"This is not redoing things, it is actually doing things that were never done," said
Harper has given tens of thousands of dollars from her personal finances to keep the center open in recent years. It was her review of center finances that identified the potential mismanagement of funds.
"We know that there was a significant amount of money mishandled or taken," said Padden, who declined to speculate how much money was missing or how it might have been misappropriated.
The center board has worked with community partners such as the Emergency Food Network in the last year to maintain services for the people who need them most.
EFN couldn't supply goods to the food bank at the center when it wasn't a registered nonprofit, so it deployed the food truck in the interim.
"We are still providing food for those less fortunate," Padden said. "We're providing clothing, we're providing meals. We're still doing it with no funding. A lot of that is because people are just rolling up their sleeves and joining in."
The board is now focused on applying for outside funding to cover daily operations. Once it has steady funding, it will hire an executive director and try to expand its offerings.
In the meantime, Padden, Harper and other board members will work with the center's three employees to run the facility.
"The drama of the past couple years is in the past," Padden said. "We want people to know we haven't gone away. We're going to make it through this."
___
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