New York charity's finances questioned

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 12, 2001

TAMPA -- Wanting to help families devastated by the Sept. 11 attack in New York, the Hillsborough Sheriff's Office decided to hold a fundraiser and split the proceeds between a local charity and the Silver Shield Foundation in New York City.

Started 20 years ago by New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, the Silver Shield's mission to provide a college education to families of slain firefighters and police officers seemed perfect to local sheriff's officials.

But that was before they knew about the New York nonprofit foundation's bottom line.

Income tax records show that for the 2000 fiscal year, the Silver Shield Foundation operated at a loss, posting $299,262 in revenue and $351,405 in expenses.

More than half the costs were management fees: $125,000 for the salary of director James Fuchs, a former Olympian and member of the Track and Field Hall of Fame; $52,500 for "professional fundraising fees"; and $27,000 for other management fees.

The numbers have the sheriff's officials considering other charities, and the similarly named Gold Shield Foundation, a nonprofit founded by Steinbrenner in Tampa to educate the children of fallen officers and firefighters here, quietly steering potential Silver Shield donations elsewhere.

"We don't want to cast a shadow on them, but we don't want anyone to connect us as a sister organization, because we're not," said Gold Shield executive director Joe Voskerchian, who draws an annual salary of $15,000 and works out of his home.

Voskerchian said he learned of the Silver Shield's poor finances several weeks ago and alerted the Yankees. "I don't want anything to embarrass Mr. Steinbrenner," Voskerchian said. "He's been so good to us."

Steinbrenner could not be reached for comment.

Fuchs, the Silver Shield's director, defended his foundation's expenses.

The management fees, he said, were to hire an outside company to run Silver Shield, which has grown rapidly over the years as it served more than 200 children. In addition to New York City officers and firefighters, Silver Shield also covers state troopers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, he said.

"If you look at (the expenses) just on the surface, it looks as though it's excessive," he said. "(But) we've never had a situation where we couldn't take care of the children."

He said after years of working without pay, he began drawing a $125,000 salary in 1997. Records show the foundation took in $8,900 more than it spent that year, and has posted losses every year since.

A few months ago, Fuchs said, he cut his salary to $60,000 and changed to a less costly management company. He would not say if he spoke to Steinbrenner before making the changes. "I'm not going to discuss things with you that are done privately," he said.

Since Sept. 11, the foundation's needs have skyrocketed, and Fuchs hopes the Silver Shield becomes the central agency for scholarships for the victims' families.

He said the foundation is faced with providing a college education to more than 1,000 children of firefighters, emergency workers, firefighters and port authority workers killed in the World Trade Center attack.

In response, donations of more than $700,000 have poured in, including $25,000 from the Tampa Bay area after the Tampa Tribune ran a full-page ad for the Silver Shield as a favor to Steinbrenner.

Martin Duffy, the program manager for Changing Our World, the management company currently running the Silver Shield in New York, said he's concerned the public will stop giving if it learns the organization has been losing money.

"We have a big mission in front of us," Duffy said, "and if people are turned off because there's a negative thing in the paper about us, we might not succeed in our mission."

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