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And you were surprised by this report?? Remember that Skip & Earl have their hand in the til and this is standard operating proceedure. I guess the State Auditor is a Racist and that is why it is critical.

The rejection by the voters was the nail in the coffin for this project which has been in transition for 12 years with no apparent end in sight.

Skip and Earl Jones' enormous egos blinded them to the fact that in light of the controversy that surrounds them, they should have stepped aside years ago in order for the project to be successful.

This audit report is an indictment to the shoddy nature of how this organization has operated with donor funds.

How interesting is it that this document, dated September 29, 2006, was just released two days after a bond was voted upon. I can imagine that its timely release prior to the election would have totally torpedoed the bond. It appears that there is some serious lack of management of this project. It would seem that the city, county and state should curtail any future grants until such time as this organization shows that it is finanically in control. I really don't appreciate Skip Alston allocating my tax dollars to this project while this waste persists. Of course, this isn't much different than what we are seeing with the school board and administration.

I'm glad that this bond was rejected. The more I read about the Sit-In story the less significant it seems to me. As a Black Southerner, this town seems to be one of the most open-minded in the Southeast/South. The old Woolworth should be made into a parking deck so more people can get to S. Elm on the weekends!

Madmax: Very little surprises me anymore. I'm just passing along the news.

Stormy: I don't think the delay was necessarily intentional. The state auditor is a Republican and has no problem releases reports at awkward political moments.

Crooks and Thieves

Co-mingling funds.

Isn't this the same MO that Project Homestead and Michael King was using to steal taxpayer money?

Blind:

Regarding co-mingling, yes and no.

Project Homestead's problems with co-mingling were pretty severe because they got money from lots of different pots and each had certain strings attached. So it was illegal for Homestead to use money meant for one purpose to do something different.

In the case of the museum, what the audit letter says is that the funds are co-mingled, which is bad for tracking purposes. But the letter also suggests that the problem could have been cured by better internal accounting. And it went on to say that none of the money spent by the museum would have been ineligible under the terms of the grant.

Of course, there's not a whole heck of a lot that would have been. That grant was given directly by the legislature with few, if any, strings attached.

My colleague Lex Alexander will be writing a story on this for tomorrow’s paper that lays out things a bit more clearly.

Mark,

That's what I don't understand about the local government reluctance to make those responsible for these taxpayer funded projects pay for or at least repay what they have stolen or misused from Greensboro and Guilford Co. taxpayers.

What happened to the lawsuit filed against Project Homestead et al. to recovery some of the missing money. Don't know how much of $17 mil was missing but I haven't heard anything from N&R about this lawsuit in the past year.

Also didn't Rep. Jones misuse $100k in another profitable non-for-profit. How about the ton of money that Commisioner Alston received for the former St. James Homes and nothing was done. Have you seen his big house on Vandalia with all those fancy cars??? How do these connected government guys keep getting government money under the table? IT should be a COI for Guilford to allow this!

It seems that if Guilford County would recovery some of this lost money that GC wouldn't always need to raise property taxes, car taxes, water rates, etc. as frequently. If you are a little late on a Labcorp bill they almost threaten to kill you!

At least the tax money would actually start going to do what its supposed to and not into someone's pocket!

Jack:

To answer at least a couple questions:

Project Homestead was in bankruptcy case. Our last report on the case was March 26 of this year, so it may be time for an update.

At the time, Margaret Banks wrote: "Like most things tied to Project Homestead, the two-year-old bankruptcy case has been all those things, said Bill Miller, the attorney appointed by the state bankruptcy court to find enough money in Homestead's coffers to pay $9.3 million in debt. Why such difficulty? Miller cites sloppy bookkeeping, a missing computer, the suicide of Homestead founder, the Rev. Michael King - the same reasons cited by Guilford County District Attorney Doug Henderson, who said earlier this month that he lacked enough evidence to file charges."

As for two of your other questions:

* Recovering public money from a failed nonprofit enterprise would be the right and propper thing to do, but probably wouldn't make much difference to your taxes. Guilford County's budget for the current year is just shy of $530 million. Recovering $20 million one time wouldn't hurt, but it wouldn't dent the tax rate that much.

* In the case of the "connected government guys" getting "government money under the table," each of the transactions that sent money to those nonprofits were approved by governments boards, sometime numerous boards and in many cases by elected officials during public sessions. Yes, they got the money, but I think you'd be hard pressed to say it was under the table.

Now, you can certainly make an argument as to whether or not the money should have been granted.

Co-mingling of funds is not necessarily improper, especially in small orgs, as long as the non-profit organization has specified fund groups, designated as unrestricted and restricted, that are setup for the disposition of those funds.

The lack of an accounting chart of accounts (until recently) for Sit In after 12 years of operation further impresses upon me the incompetent leadership that is in charge of the organization as well as the gross lack of outside oversight in light of the org receiving donor funds.

You know it seems by now the folks that can not manage money should be identifiable to the city council and County Commissioners along with our legislators. I would be interested in knowing how much pressure is put on these groups by PACs, and the people who indirectly receive the money that are in office. I must say that thus far the folks that seem to be in power in the Simpkins PAC are showing signs that they will support the cause not matter what the reason as long as it involves a Black Issue. From what I have read about Dr Simpkin's, I do not believe that if he were alive that he would indorse some of these issues and the people that run them. I think that the same folks that end up with the monies are probably also the ones on the PAC’s Board. Soon they will have no credibility if they continue to back issues simply because they involve a black cause - they need to add some integrity in what they are doing. Has anyone & N&R thought about doing a story on how this PAC and others in office influence how grants and money from the tax payer are distributed to these non-profits?

Max: That has been an issue raised in multiple stories over the past six years I've worked at the paper, and perhaps longer than that.

I've noticed that oversight from the outside is typically very timid when it comes to non-profit organizations that are administered by Blacks.

After the Homestead debacle, Mayor Holliday mentioned that the City should have been more responsible in it's oversight of the funds given to Homestead, but was intimidated/cowed by the racist tag when it questioned it's policies.

This was unfortunate and resulted in the misuse of countless thousands of taxpayers dollars with no particular one being held accountable for this travesty.