Troubled EOB fell behind paying agencies

By Timothy Pratt

Tuesday, March 16, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.

While dealing with $2.1 million in unaccounted-for funds and other troubles, the nonprofit agency with the largest budget in the Las Vegas Valley began falling behind in payments to other, smaller nonprofit agencies last year, officials from those agencies said Monday.

The shortfall in payments to agencies that provide childcare to low-income families made some of those agencies fear for their futures, officials said.

Economic Opportunity Board -- with a $60 million budget, the valley's largest nonprofit agency -- has not been able to account for the missing money from its child care assistance program, the largest of 30 programs it runs. The nonprofit agency uses the state and federal child care funds to pay about 200 smaller agencies, who in turn offer the services.

The EOB's directors will meet today to vote on whether to bring in a federal "strike team" to assess the agency's troubles, said Mike Willden director of the state human resources department -- which oversees four divisions that fund EOB programs.

Angela Quinn, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Las Vegas -- one of the agencies the EOB didn't pay for months last fall -- said the large agency's problems affect social services throughout the valley.

"When you're looking at this from a community perspective, this becomes a concern," she said.

Shortly after Quinn took her job at the agency in October, she said, she found that the EOB was more than $300,000 behind in paying $508,797 to Boys and Girls Club for services offered from July 16 to Aug. 31 -- the busiest time for child care, since school is out. During that time, her agency served close to 1,200 children, ages 6 to 16.

Quinn worked for the EOB administering a housing program before her present job, but she said that experience "neither helped nor hurt" when she picked up the phone and tried to collect the money from her former employer.

The EOB's first answer was, she said, "the classic, 'The check's in the mail."'

The check didn't arrive, however.

Quinn said she called up to three times a week for a month, then met with Jerry Allen, who oversees child care assistance funds for the state.

"I assured them I would look into it. They provided the services and deserved the payment," Allen said.

He also said the Boys and Girls Club of Las Vegas is the state's largest provider of child care before and after school.

Quinn said her agency got a check for $290,000 in mid-November, but is now chasing another $54,225 the EOB owes it for child care provided through Dec. 31.

"If we get closer to summer and this still isn't resolved," she said, "we will provide the services -- but only up to a certain point."

Anna Hopper, assistant to the director at Variety Day Home -- a child care center in Las Vegas that serves up to 165 pre-kindergarten children a day -- said that the EOB fell behind "several months" last year, but didn't have access to records confirming the period or amount of money.

She said the lack of cash flow hurt the center. "We were in danger of cutting back and had to struggle," she said.

Clyde Caldwell, executive director of the Henderson Boys and Girls Club, said EOB "had a problem with reimbursing" his agency between September and November of last year, but wouldn't say how much the agency was owed.

Hopper said smaller programs are particularly hurt by EOB's problems.

"If they continue to fall behind ... it's quite a struggle to pay your staff," she said.