Editorial: Nonprofits need better oversight

Friday, June 25, 2004 | 8:57 a.m.

Nevada Partners is a nonprofit group in Las Vegas charged with helping people find jobs. Its president is Steven Horsford. During the past four years Horsford has also been a member of the Southern Nevada Workforce Investment Board. This board oversees Nevada Partners and similar nonprofit groups in Nye, Lincoln and Esmeralda counties that use federal money to assist people with employment.

A Democratic candidate for the state Senate seat representing North Las Vegas, Horsford resigned from the Workforce board Wednesday, citing "personal and professional commitments." In our view, he should never have served on the board. Although the federal bylaws do not expressly forbid it, such an arrangement is a clear conflict.

The Workforce Investment Board was created after Congress passed the Workforce Investment Act in 1998. The 52-member board receives federal money for use in combating unemployment and distributes it to agencies best equipped to aid in that mission. Last fall, and again last week, the Workforce board cited Nevada Partners for failing to document how it spent $500,000. Within hours of a Sun inquiry on Tuesday, however, the Workforce board's deputy manager sent Nevada Partners a fax, saying documentation the nonprofit organization had provided last week was found to be valid. But with the president of Nevada Partners serving as a board member, how valid is this finding? This is the type of question that conflicts of interest logically provoke.

The Workforce board has also cited Nevada Partners for entering into two contracts on its own, resulting in more than $100,000 being paid out without the board's knowledge. How will this violation be handled? Again, a valid question whenever there's a blatant conflict of interest.

The federal government needs to get better control over the nonprofit organizations it funds. There should be clear rules prohibiting conflicts and strong penalties for failing to properly document expenditures.