Board of troubled EOB meets in closed session

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Wednesday, April 21, 2004 | 9:04 a.m.

About half of the fractured board of the Las Vegas Valley's largest nonprofit agency met Tuesday to plan for an upcoming visit from state officials that may help decide the future of more than $22 million in funding for services to the poor.

The meeting of the Economic Opportunity Board was closed to the public and to the media, and its results were unclear.

Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, the board's spokesman, downplayed the meeting's importance.

"We didn't accomplish anything," Neal said. "We did what boards normally do, which is get up to date on what everybody was doing and who they had talked to recently."

Five members of the decision-making body overseeing the Economic Opportunity Board -- together with Diba Hadi, who oversees the agency's two largest and most troubled programs, and Hannah Brown, who is serving as the agency's interim executive director -- gathered at the agency's headquarters to plan for a Thursday visit from Mike Willden, director of the state Human Resources Department, and Nancy Ford, administrator of the Welfare Division, according to Las Vegas Councilman Lawrence Weekly, vice chairman of the board.

Willden said he will review the conclusions from a team of consultants hired with funding from the Health and Human Services Department, which earlier this month looked into EOB's books and management.

HHS gives the agency more than 70 percent of the $20 million behind the EOB's child care programs and also provides $2.2 million in a community service block grant that assists many of the agency's 30 programs. The state provides the rest of the child care funding and oversees both pots of money.

A $2.1 million advance given by the state to the agency last year was unaccounted for, triggering the state to call in the consultants, the Peer to Peer Crisis Intervention at Mid-Iowa Community Action Inc.

At the same time -- the first week of April -- another team from Washington's Head Start bureau was looking into the child care program.

The Mid-Iowa team's report might not be finished by Thursday, but a draft will be discussed with the EOB during Willden's visit, he said. It is not clear what the team recommended, but it is clear that the EOB's problems may lead to different agencies getting the programs and money.

The state last week published a request for ideas from other nonprofit agencies in the Las Vegas Valley that may be interested in handling some or all of the child care program in the future.

A request for detailed proposals for the program will follow, Willden said.

Additionally, federal law covering the HHS money says the state can take community service block grants away from agencies, Willden said.

This would mean $2.2 million -- most of the $3.4 million that comes to Nevada from that grant -- may be cut from the agency's budget.

The seriousness of the unaccounted-for funds and the possible redirection of federal monies was in notable contrast to the interest shown by board members Tuesday.