HOPE Decision Due This Month

Published 5:16 pm Thursday, August 15, 2013

FARMVILLE — HOPE Community Services, Inc. will have a large part of its future told regarding community action agency status and community service block grant funding within the next two weeks.

A State Police investigation related to HOPE, on the other hand, has no stated timetable, nor are investigators offering specifics on the focus of their scrutiny.

The Virginia Department of Social Services (VDSS) held a fact-finding conference in Farmville on Wednesday morning at which HOPE presented its case for keeping both the action agency status and the crucial funding.

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The VDSS is moving forward under Sections 676(c) of the CSBG (Community Services Block Grant) ACT to recommend that Governor McDonnell rescind HOPE Community Services designation as a community action agency based on failure to comply with the State Plan, Standard or Requirement.

Wednesday’s gathering provided crucial information VDSS will use to help decide whether or not to continue proceeding down that de-designation road.

VDSS had strongly recommended earlier this summer that HOPE’s board of directors voluntarily give up the agency’s community action agency status, allowing the state to immediately focus on re-establishing delivery of services in the six-county area, rather than devote its attention to rescinding HOPE’s community action agency status.

HOPE’s board was bitterly divided on the issue. Resignations and new appointments, however, find a board now firmly behind the decision to fight for the organization’s future with the belief it can win an appeal and quickly move, itself, to resume service delivery. EnergyShare, in fact, has already been re-established.

The Wednesday meeting was to hear public testimony and accept evidence concerning termination of HOPE Community Services’ eligibility for Community Services Block Grant funding. Or reasons not to terminate.

The VDSS fact-finding is part of its moving forward to formally de-designate HOPE Community Services as a community action agency, the department’s agenda stated.

But that formal decision has not yet been made.

HOPE’s plea to retain community action agency status and state funding was the focal point on Wednesday in the third floor Board of Supervisors meeting room in the county’s courthouse, a plea supported by public comments.

Shirby Scott-Brown urged the state to allow HOPE to move forward. “It has served a multitude of people,” she said of HOPE. “People that were in need of services that they could not afford themselves.”

Scott-Brown was not alone.

“I ask you to step up (and) give this organization a chance to be the organization it can be,” said Virginia McDonald. “…This patient is not dead yet.”

Roma Morris, director of the Prince Edward County Department of Social Services, said she hoped “the state would take a good, hard look at it because we need it.” And, she added, the department is “certainly willing to work with (HOPE).”

Jasper L. Hendricks III, HOPE board member, was given the responsibility of presenting the organization’s case and spoke for approximately 35 minutes to Fran Inge, director of the department’s Office of Volunteer and Community Services, and Jack Frazier, acting Deputy Commissioner in Charge of Operations for VDSS, who both listened attentively. Thick written documentation and supporting documents were provided for Inge and Frazier to carry back to Richmond.

Frazier asked that all who spoke present facts to help the state make its decision on whether or not HOPE’s community action agency status should be rescinded, not hearsay or gossip, but there was no oath-taking.

Inge and Frazier did not promise when the decision would be reached, but they intend it to be handed down in the next two weeks.

“It is the intention of the department to make a decision whether it will move forward with de-designation of HOPE Community Services within 14 days of this hearing,” Frazier said.

The department will not be easily persuaded to abandon de-designation. Inge has previously told The Herald she could see no way HOPE could successfully appeal to retain its community action agency status.

In a June 14 letter to HOPE, Inge had written, “both the HOPE Board of Directors and VDSS has a fiduciary responsibility to be good stewards of public funds; therefore, looking at multiple breaches of your contract, we are suspending all funds. Major issues which led to this decision include: an unacceptable A-133 audit, no proof of current liability insurance, allegations of fiscal mismanagement, Board minutes are not current, as required. Of most concern is our lack of confidence that services are being delivered to the residents of your community.”

Hendricks spoke at length and in detail, addressing successive points raised regarding HOPE, and told the VDSS officials that the newly-expanded HOPE board and its volunteer interim executive director, Dr. Henry J. Featherston, Jr., have been working to correct cited deficiencies and take corrective action to turn the organization around.

Dr. Featherston, president of the Amelia branch of the NAACP, retired after a decades-long career in the Amelia County Public School system, and he also served as Amelia School Board chairman. More specific to HOPE, he served for close to a quarter of a century on the area’s community action agency board of directors, including a short stint previously as interim executive director.

“So we’ve been active in reaching out to the surrounding community,” Hendricks said, “in helping to rebuild a structure…so we can build from the ground up.”

The agency’s former executive director, the Rev. Dr. Kitty Smith, resigned in the first week of July. Hendricks said Smith had been asked to resign during the July 1 board meeting, but declined to do so, “but then on Tuesday evening (July 2) when we picked up our local, The Farmville Herald, we were told via The Farmville Herald that the executive director resigned.” A letter of resignation from Smith, effective July 2, was subsequently received by the board, he said.

Explaining her resignation then, Smith told The Herald on that July afternoon that, “I am grieved that the board did not follow the recommendation of the state because it would have assured immediate services—really, that’s the reason I’m resigning—I’m grieved over their ignoring the recommendation. If they’d done what the state said there would be immediate assistance for the residents of the district. Now, according to Fran Inge, it may be as long as two years before there is service in this area again.”

Hendricks, who joined HOPE’s board of directors in September, detailed the ways in which HOPE is moving to reinstitute services and form a variety of partnerships with organizations and agencies across its six-county service area.

Meanwhile, the agency, Hendricks told the VDSS officials, is cooperating with a State Police investigation. “We provided them with all the information that they need. And they actually said we’re actually probably saving them some time because we’re being so helpful,” he said.

Virginia State Police Special Agent-Accounting, Chuck Myers, was in attendance and confirmed to The Herald that there is “an ongoing investigation.” When asked how to accurately describe the specific focus of the investigation, Myers referred The Herald to Virginia State Police spokesperson, Corinne Geller.

Contacted by The Herald and asked for specific wording to accurately describe the investigation, Geller responded by email: “The Virginia State Police are involved in an ongoing investigation related to the HOPE Community Services Center. That’s all I can provide/say at this time.”

Frazier, who presided over Wednesday’s fact-finding meeting, said at the outset that the department has “grave concerns about the governance and financial viability of HOPE Community Services.”

VDSS, Frazier stated, has “strongly recommended that HOPE Community Services voluntarily rescind their designation” and because the agency’s newly-reconstituted board has chosen to try and keep HOPE’s community action agency status the fact-finding conference was held.

Following Hendricks’ presentation there were follow-up questions from Frazier. Among the questions he asked was one about HOPE’s assets and liabilities. Hendricks said there are assets of approximately $250,000, with liabilities close to $400,000, which he said includes $107,000 in unpaid payroll taxes.

Asked by Frazier if there are any current funding sources, Hendricks said, No, not now. But he said HOPE will be able to sell the vehicles it owns: buses, vans and box trucks. The agency is also considering selling property, a house and approximately 13 acres, it owns in Prince Edward, a donation from the County.

Asked if HOPE is currently providing any services at all, Hendricks said one service, EnergyShare, is in place.

No staff members are on payroll, Hendricks said, in response to another question.

As for board meetings where quorums were present, the most recent, he said, was August 8, though there were no quorums at any meeting during 2013 until June 27.

Before adjourning the meeting, Frazier said he and VDSS recognize the importance of block grants and how the programs they fund are vital to the community.

The fourteen days are already counting down.

HOPE is hoping the countdown leads to lift-off.

Or re-lift-off.