Go to content Go to navigation Go to search

April 29, 2008

New York City Council's Charity Support Under Scrutiny

A New York City Council member supplied more than $400,000 in city money to a nonprofit organization with sloppy financial records that was run at times by his current or former employees, reports The New York Times.

The organization, Libre, did not file a tax return for the past two years, never registered as a charity with the state office, as required by law, and was headed in recent years by two women who had worked for the council member Hiram Monserrate as chief of staff and director of constituent services.

The Libre situation came to light as a result of a wide examination of the nonprofit organizations that the City Council supports, itself sparked by last month’s revelation that the council used the names of fictitious groups to stow money to spend later without undergoing a normal budget review. Now auditors from the city comptroller’s office, federal investigators, and lawyers at the city’s Department of Investigation are examining the millions of dollars in discretionary funds that council members have given to community groups.

At Libre, a group created to help immigrants and others in Queens, the current director, Rodolfo Herrera, calls the organization “a mess.”

Mr. Monserrate has said that he had no control of the organization and believed that it followed the law in accounting for its finances. However, his account of whether certain staff members worked for him and Libre concurrently differs from what the one tax return filed, from 2005, indicates.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

Tuesday April 29, 2008 | Permalink

Commenting is closed for this article.

Previous: Rockefellers Want Exxon Mobil to Split Top Job
Next: Public Radio Seeks to Broaden Reach

---

Copyright © 2009 The Chronicle of Philanthropy