Owed paychecks, three who helped others now struggle, too

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2007 | 7:19 a.m.

Tonia Kirkland, a 37-year-old single mother of four, found herself in a strange situation last fall.

A year into her job helping poor minorities with HIV/AIDS find places to live, she and her family were nearly on the streets.

The reason: Her employer, the nonprofit organization Fighting Aids in our Community Today , had fallen three paychecks behind. She wound up applying to another nonprofit organization for help in paying the rent.

The irony is not lost on Theresa King. She was d iagnosed in 1995 with HIV/AIDS, and a job at FACT was her last in more than 20 years of social work helping others with the disease. Now the 51-year-old is living at her sister's house, unable to afford an apartment.

"I was helping people trying to not get in that position," King said of being without an address of her own. "Now I'm in the same situation."

Three months after the eight-year-old organization shut its doors, Kirkland, King and Kevin Moran have gotten nowhere in their attempt to recover wages they say they are owed.

When FACT closed, the back pay to the three approached $15,000, they said.

They have sought relief from former Executive Director Lionel Starkes, Clark County - the source of some of the organization's money - and the Nevada Labor Commission .

Starkes has not returned their calls, or those from the Sun. County officials say the issue is not in their jurisdiction. And the state says the same.

The claims of the three former employees make for an unfortunate epilogue in the troubled history of the organization , one of several working in the black community to have folded in recent years.

"A lot of non profits suffer from poor bookkeeping, or they're not the right people doing the job, what with Nevada's good ol' boy network," Moran said.

The history of FACT is not without controversy.

Its founder, Michael Chambliss, awaits trial on murder charges stemming from a 2005 stabbing.

In 2003 state officials shot down the proposed use of $125,000 in grant money to organize a gospel concert, saying the money was for outreach, testing, counseling and information.

Last year county officials said they had problems with the organization's bookkeeping, including the finding that Starkes was signing his own checks.

A March 8 letter to Moran on FACT letterhead and signed by Starkes refers to problems with future federal and county funding.

"Kevin, I am trying to see that everybody gets paid," the letter reads.

In a late March interview, Starkes said he was struggling to make payroll. By then, Kirkland, King and Moran had left the organization, reducing FACT's staff to Starkes and one other employee.

On May 14, FACT closed, resulting in the county taking back $116,000 of a $150,000 grant. The money was returned to the county's general fund.

Moran, whose job was to reach people with HIV/AIDS in prisons and on the streets, said the organization's absence will be felt.

About one in four people with HIV/AIDS in Clark County is black, according to Gary Vrooman, public policy chairman for the Las Vegas Ryan White Council, a group that advises on how to spend federal funds.

Moran said having minorities such as himself and his colleagues working in organizations such as FACT is important in reaching that population.

"There's different things you have to do in minority communities," he said, citing lower percentages of health insurance as one of the differences between minorities and whites.

Now, he said, "the people who need help don't get served."

As for his case, he said: "I'm a front lines person. I go to work and expect to get paid."