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Delray Beach-based Haitian American Community Council to lose key funding

By Erika Slife

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Posted September 29 2006

Delray Beach· One of the county's largest Haitian assistance agencies is losing its major funding source because of serious questions about the way it manages its finances, forcing it to hand off the bulk of its operations.

The taxpayer-funded Children Services Council of Palm Beach will stop granting the Delray Beach-based Haitian American Community Council about $570,000 a year to run family and children services on Sunday. The funding accounts for nearly 80 percent of the Haitian council's budget, according to several audits.

People who use the family immigration programs will not be affected because Children Services Council has found other operators, said Marlene Passell, services council spokeswoman.

But the pullout will result in a major restructuring of the 11-year-old Haitian nonprofit, which has been dogged by controversies over the years, including the resignation of an executive director in 2004 after allegations she had violated conflict-of-interest laws.

The services council decided to discontinue its funding after a two-year audit of the Haitian American council disclosed the agency has not paid its bills on time, had written bad checks and has an unresolved IRS lien.

"Over the past three-plus years, the Haitian American Community Council has continued a seesaw pattern of declining program and fiscal management," the report stated.

Haitian American Community Council Executive Director Frantz PetitFrere said the withdrawal of funding was a "major blow" to the agency, which helps immigrants achieve legal status and acclimate to the United States. Palm Beach County is the agency's only other major funding source, and that annual grant also may be in jeopardy, county officials said.

"The issues related to their program are relatively serious and certainly the Children Services Council de-funding raises questions whether their program can remain viable," said Jon Van Arnam, assistant county administrator. "They have financial and programmatic issues, which need to be resolved, and then they'll need to be able to demonstrate that they can still have a viable program."

The county's 2006-07 budget set aside $147,826 for the Haitian council, but staff are reviewing the council's stability before the funds are released, Van Arnam said.

Since its inception in 1995, the agency has worked on about 30,000 cases, said Carolyn Zimmerman, one of the council's founders.

Zimmerman and Daniella Henry began the agency in a storefront in southeast Delray Beach, where they depended on donations from civic organizations and change in a jar.

"Imagine coming to a big country like this and then finding out that nobody's here to help you," Zimmerman said. "It's sad."

Zimmerman acknowledges the agency doesn't keep a budget. But she said it is not in the business of working with bureaucracy, it is here to help people.

"They don't see the human being involved," she said. "They see paperwork."

But the agency has run into problems.

In 2004, allegations surfaced that Henry had violated conflict-of-interest rules when she used federal funds to subsidize AIDS clients living in rental homes owned by a relative and a friend.

The city of West Palm Beach had funneled the federal grant to the Haitian council and had to reimburse the U.S. government.

The city is threatening legal action against the Haitian council, said Paula Ryan, interim director of the economic and community development department.

Erika Slife can be reached at eslife@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6690.