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County oversight of SCLC criticized

Activist says checks and balances of Trammell programs missing.

Keith Lander of Dayton leaves the Montgomery County Commission Meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 23, after complaining to the commission about its lack of oversight of county funds given to the Rev. Raleigh Trammell and the Dayton Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

JIM NOELKER/Staff photographer Keith Lander of Dayton leaves the Montgomery County Commission Meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 23, after complaining to the commission about its lack of oversight of county funds given to the Rev. Raleigh Trammell and the Dayton Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

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By Lynn Hulsey, Staff Writer Updated 8:56 AM Wednesday, February 24, 2010

DAYTON — Community activist Keith Lander said community leaders, particularly those in the black community, failed in their obligation to help oversee taxpayer money for the needy that went to programs run by the Rev. Raleigh Trammell’s nonprofit groups.

“There was money given and the checks and balances were not there,” Lander said on Tuesday, Feb. 23, at the Montgomery County Commission meeting.

“Somebody should have said something,” said Lander, a custodial worker at the county’s Stillwater Center.

Controversy has swirled around the Dayton Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance in the wake of questions about how the groups spent federal and county money. On Feb. 11 the FBI raided SCLC headquarters and the homes of Trammell and his daughter, Angela Goodwine.

Trammell also faces a sexual harassment complaint by a Dayton employee and national SCLC allegations that he and another man embezzled funds from the civil rights group.

Trammell, chairman of the national and local SCLC and executive director of the IMA, declined to comment Tuesday.

After the Dayton Daily News raised questions, the county discovered that for two years it failed to monitor a counseling and case management program for the needy run by the SCLC and IMA, and the SCLC could not prove it provided services.

SCLC was removed from the program, and the county is scrutinizing IMA records for that program and another that together provided the IMA with $186,150 last year.

“We are committed to accountability,” said Montgomery County Administrator Deborah Feldman. “Mr. Lander’s comments were certainly very appropriate.”

“We dropped the ball,” said Commissioner Dan Foley, pledging Feldman would produce a report outlining the cause of the county’s failures and changes needed to make sure that taxpayer money is spent as intended.

In the last two weeks about $179,000 in federal and county funding has been withdrawn from Trammell’s groups. Another $53,000 in federal funding for a teen domestic violence program is on hold after the state in January found that Goodwine could not account for expenses.

Earlier this month officials at the United Way of Greater Dayton learned that the SCLC and IMA had quietly closed a food pantry and domestic violence shelter that were receiving Federal Emergency Management Agency funding. Trammell told the United Way that the two had closed in August, but the Daily News found that the shelter had been without water or gas service since June and that it had not been a consistent user of county water since 2006.

Last week the local policy board overseeing the FEMA money rejected IMA and SCLC’s applications for 2010 funding.

The county is reviewing all SCLC and IMA funding, including looking for any double billing for services provided by the groups, Feldman said. On Monday she informed Trammell that nearly $40,000 in annual human services funding would be immediately withdrawn for a home-based feeding program that serves 9 people.

“There is now so much called into question with this organization that we did not think it was prudent to continue funding any program through the SCLC,” Feldman told the county Human Services Levy Council on Tuesday.

Trammell calls national meeting

The Rev. Raleigh Trammell announced that a national Southern Christian Leadership Conference executive board meeting will be held in Dayton at the local chapter’s 2132 W. Third St. offices on Thursday, Feb. 25, at 10 a.m., according an interoffice memo written by Trammell and obtained by the Dayton Daily News.

Trammell, chairman of the group, and national Treasurer Spiver Gordon are accused by some SCLC officials of embezzling $569,000 from the national civil rights group.

Trammell declined comment but in a Feb. 17 letter to board members he wrote, “Despite the attacks, what the devil meant for evil, God is using for the good of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We are moving forward in unity with the enduring spirit of Christ ... ”

—

Lynn Hulsey

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