Monitoring lax on tax money given to SCLC

Tea Party’s impact may be strongest for general election
11:11 a.m.
Victim of human trafficking speaks to students
11:00 a.m.
‘App economy’ job prospects booming
10:05 a.m.
Bullying law brings rule changes
10:04 a.m.
GE to hire 5,000 veterans, add 400 new manufacturing jobs
9:37 a.m.
> More headlines

By Tom Beyerlein  and Lynn Hulsey, Staff Writers Updated 10:30 PM Saturday, February 13, 2010

DAYTON — A pattern of questionable claims and often sloppy government oversight has allowed the Rev. Raleigh Trammell’s nonprofit groups to receive millions in taxpayer dollars over the past decade.

A Dayton Daily News examination found those groups got federal funding for two programs even after they were shut down, state funding for a program that lacked financial documentation, and county funding for a program that had little proof that people were served.

On Thursday, Feb. 11, FBI agents raided the homes of Trammell and his daughter Angela Goodwine, and the headquarters of the Dayton Southern Christian Leadership Conference as part of a financial probe. Trammell is chairman of the SCLC and executive director of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance — groups that received about $3.7 million in public money since 1999.

In several programs reviewed by the newspaper there was lax monitoring of how the money was spent.

For example, Montgomery County officials pay Trammell’s groups $40,000 a year to deliver meals to frail elderly people because they believe the people served are otherwise difficult to reach.

The nine recipients include several members of Trammell’s Central Missionary Baptist Church. Among them: a church deacon and his wife, who is a former Dayton Public Schools administrator who testified on Trammell’s behalf at his grand theft trial in 1978. The program’s paid staff includes Goodwine, Trammell’s daughter.

County oversight includes requiring invoices before payment, interviewing two recipients a year and reviewing the group’s quarterly reports. But a Daily News review found the submitted documentation included conflicting and inadequate financial accounting, quarterly reports that often restated client health conditions from previous reports and, in one case, a false claim that a client with diabetes had no special dietary needs.

“As to people not being served but for this program,” said Executive Director Doug McGarry of the Area Agency on Aging, “I don’t buy it.”

Share this article