Head Start cut off again

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Monday, Nov. 7, 2005 | 8:13 a.m.

The federal government has sent a letter to the Economic Opportunity Board saying it is not renewing 2006 funding for the Head Start program because of continuing mismanagement after negative reviews.

The letter, dated Oct. 27, is a follow-up to one sent in January that said the more than $12 million program would be taken away from the organization, the largest nonprofit group in the valley.

Both letters detailed problems dating to 2002 and both gave the organization an opportunity to appeal the decisions announced, prolonging a pattern of seeming to lower the boom only to give another chance.

Angela Quinn, a former EOB employee who is now president of Boys & Girls Clubs of Las Vegas, said she was "somewhat surprised" that the pattern had continued so long.

"Due process is a necessity," she said. "And so is delivering quality services to children. I hope the one is being balanced against the other."

If the Head Start program is ever taken away from the EOB, Quinn's organization is one of several in the valley that would compete for the contract.

Neither Jean Childs, executive director of the EOB, nor Claude Logan, chairman of the organization's board of directors, returned calls seeking comment on the Department of Health and Human Services letter.

Steve Barbour, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, the federal agency that oversees the Head Start bureau, also failed to return the Sun's calls.

But a news release titled "Economic Opportunity Board (EOB) Maintains Head Start Program!" laid the blame for the most recent examples of mismanagement detailed in the federal letter on an outside team it hired in July 2004 to correct its many problems.

The EOB's board voted in November to extend that team's contract from five months to a year, with various board members saying at the time they were satisfied with its job.

The federal government's Oct. 27 letter, meanwhile, laid out a chronology of the years of problems at the EOB, starting with a 2002 audit that was the basis for classifying the EOB as "high-risk."

It goes on to detail the various unmet requirements placed on the organization over time -- like not sending the federal government financial statements and minutes of board meetings and not completing a 2004 audit.

The letter concludes by giving the organization 30 days to appeal the decision to not renew the funding in the fiscal year that began July 1. In the meantime, funds will keep flowing to the organization.

Calls to Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. -- who has said before that oversight of the Head Start program should be tightened -- were not returned.

Dianna Russo, board member of the Nevada Association of Nonprofit Organizations, said the process of denial and appeal should not drag on forever.

"The organization has a right to appeal," Russo said. "But with that, there should be a time limit. If they're doing things inappropriately, there should be a limit, or they'll continue to do it."