SCLC leader’s local programs scrutinized

An FBI agent escorts the Rev. Raleigh Trammell (right) from the Dayton SCLC headquarters at 2132 W. Third St. on Thursday, Feb. 11.

Jan Underwood/Staff photographer An FBI agent escorts the Rev. Raleigh Trammell (right) from the Dayton SCLC headquarters at 2132 W. Third St. on Thursday, Feb. 11.

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By Lynn Hulsey and Tom Beyerlein
Staff Writers Updated 12:15 AM Friday, February 12, 2010

DAYTON — The federal government is paying two social service agencies led by the Rev. Raleigh Trammell to operate a food pantry for the poor and a domestic violence shelter. Both have been closed since August.

In response to questions raised by the Dayton Daily News this week, officials of the United Way of the Greater Dayton Area visited the Dayton chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and confirmed that the pantry and shelter are closed.

Last year the SCLC Dayton chapter and the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance together received $88,058 in federal emergency food and shelter funding, including federal stimulus money. The Federal Emergency Management Agency money was supposed to pay for the shelter, a food pantry and home-delivered meals.

The United Way, which provides oversight of the money, is notifying FEMA and United Way Worldwide, Senior Vice President Jayne Klose said Thursday, Feb. 11.

“FEMA has a process to investigate potential fraud. We will assist them in any way we can,” Klose said.

It’s just the latest in a series of problems involving programs for the underprivileged run by Trammell’s nonprofit organizations, which have received about $3 million in taxpayer money since 1999. For example:

• Montgomery County announced Thursday that SCLC will no longer receive a $52,000 annual contract through the Dayton Urban League to assist low-income families after county officials found little documentation that the service was being provided, said County Administrator Deborah Feldman.

• The county also suspended a $40,000 SCLC feeding program for the elderly pending an inspection of cooking facilities and may withdraw funding in April, Feldman said.

• The state last month froze $53,000 in criminal-justice funding for 2010 after an inspector found the SCLC didn’t properly account for program expenditures.

• The committee that runs the local Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration dropped the SCLC as the event’s fiscal agent because the SCLC provided few details on revenues and expenditures, according to committee member Lynnette Heard, executive director for the office of University of Dayton President Daniel Curran.

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