Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
The board leader says members should have kept a closer watch, as the sheriff looks into financial irregularities at the Ridgecrest facility.
By ERIC STIRGUS
© St. Petersburg Times, published July 22, 2001
LARGO -- By all accounts, the Greater Ridgecrest Area Neighborhood Family Center exceeded early expectations.
The agency that funds it set performance goals, and the center exceeded them. But problems surfaced earlier this year. The center struggled to pay its debts and hire employees.
Still, members of the Juvenile Welfare Board felt the problems were typical of an agency just 3 years old. They remained patient.
That changed last month when a JWB audit uncovered recordkeeping irregularities at the center, which included the shredding of time sheets. A Sheriff's Office investigation has been launched, and the JWB has taken over financial control of the center.
The center's board chairman now admits the board was too lenient in its oversight. And Juvenile Welfare Board supervisors say problems at the center may result in stricter monitoring of such agencies.
"We will be monitoring a lot closer," said center board chairman Edward "BeBe" Hobson. "We will make sure at every monthly meeting that they will turn in financial records and what goals they have met. We will look at staffing levels and not chase dollars."
The criminal inquiry, and the JWB's contention that center programs operated without participants, surprised many in this closely knit community of about 2,200 residents.
"I'm very much surprised," said the Rev. Benny Lee Dyer, pastor of St. Mary's Missionary Baptist Church, who attended some of the board meetings. "I know what they're saying, but I don't know if it is true or not."
The Greater Ridgecrest Area Neighborhood Family Center started as a place to help residents in Ridgecrest, a predominantly African-American neighborhood near Largo. Now, with its $185,285 budget, the center and its board quickly became an important player in the neighborhood. Its employees mentored young men and women and held classes to help people earn high school equivalency certificates. County officials asked for its advice in picking an agency to run the Omni Center recreation complex. And the family center fought for the extension of 119th Street N, the main north-south thoroughfare in Ridgecrest into a Largo neighborhood.
Hobson, chairman of the center's board, now believes it all was too much, too soon.
"It became too large, too fast," he said. "And uncontrollable."
Initially, staff members appeared to have everything under control, Hobson said. But the board did not ask staff members to document whether things were indeed running smoothly, which was a mistake, Hobson said.
The board's understanding of the center's management would change in mid June.
An employee was seen shredding time sheets, incident reports and other documents. He allegedly did so at the direction of the center's executive director, Fran Philpot-Scott, according to a written statement by staff supervisor Loretta Mitchell.
Staff members reported their concerns to the JWB, which prompted the group to move up its annual site visit of the center from July 10 to June 18.
JWB officials put together a report alleging that employee time sheets were altered without staff approval and that Philpot-Scott was paid $934.48 for overtime, holiday or vacation pay she was not entitled to, along with other irregularities.
Philpot-Scott wrote a letter to JWB Executive Director Jim Mills accusing JWB staffers of lying and said there was an "undercurrent of distrust among staff members." She resigned June 28 and now will not comment.
A Ridgecrest native, Philpot-Scott, 38, returned to her neighborhood from Virginia in 1994 after 11 years as an administrative supervisor for the U.S. Navy. She became a community leader, intimately involved in efforts with county officials to help the neighborhood.
She was hired as the family center's executive director in April 1999 but resigned this February. Jacqueline "Jai" Hinson was hired to replace Philpot-Scott, but differences with board leadership prompted her to resign on May 10. Philpot-Scott was rehired that same day.
JWB supervisors believe the merry-go-round in leadership was a factor in the current problems.
"Absent an executive director, absent an entire board, these things happen," said Lisa Sahulka, JWB's director of programs and finances. "That can be very damaging to a small agency."
JWB officials recovered some of the shredded documents, which were passed on to the Sheriff's Office. A spokesman for the Sheriff's Office said their investigation is in its "infancy" stages, declining to comment further.
Many residents refuse to believe Philpot-Scott would intentionally do anything wrong.
"I would not believe she would want to harm this community," said Linda Magee, who grew up on the same street as Philpot-Scott. "Not when she came back to this community when she could have gone elsewhere."
Dyer echoed Magee's sentiments.
"I've never heard of her getting into any trouble," he said. "Hopefully, they can clear it up."
Sahulka said the JWB is considering expanding its most attentive monitoring of organizations like the family center from three to five years. The JWB may also conduct quarterly visits and require the center to submit monthly financial records.
Still, JWB officials hope to continue working with the center. JWB officials recently met with family center board members and said they were impressed with their willingness to accept some of the blame.
Hobson, the family center's board chairman, is hoping for a second chance.
"We're going to do our best to make it work," he said.