{"id":2841,"date":"2010-09-29T13:03:10","date_gmt":"2010-09-29T17:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2841"},"modified":"2010-09-29T13:03:10","modified_gmt":"2010-09-29T17:03:10","slug":"are-non-profits-in-the-north-country-getting-enough-scrutiny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/09\/29\/are-non-profits-in-the-north-country-getting-enough-scrutiny\/","title":{"rendered":"Are non-profits in the North Country getting enough scrutiny?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some of the region&#8217;s biggest non-profits have earned a lot of lousy press recently, for alleged mismanagement, misuse of funds, and a lack of clear leadership.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, the Tri-Lakes Center for Independent Living director was fired, as the Attorney General&#8217;s office continues its probe.\u00a0\u00a0 This from the <a href=\"http:\/\/adirondackdailyenterprise.com\/page\/content.detail\/id\/515529.html\">Adirondack Daily Enterprise<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[Former director Lauren] LeFebvre  is the second TLCIL employee to be fired in as many months. Maureen  Santiago, the center&#8217;s former bookkeeper, was terminated by the board on  Aug. 8.<\/p>\n<p>LeFebvre and Santiago are at the center of an ongoing  investigation by the AG&#8217;s Office into claims that they borrowed money  from the nonprofit organization to pay for personal expenses, among  other things.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Meanwhile, the head of a social service agency based in Moriah has been ousted, <a href=\"http:\/\/pressrepublican.com\/0100_news\/x74675294\/Mountain-Lake-Services-chief-resigns\">according to the Plattsburgh Press-Republican<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Following more than a month on suspension, Mountain Lake  Services Executive Director Dipanker &#8220;Dipu&#8221; Basu has resigned.<\/p>\n<p>The  embattled head of the human services agency had been brought up on  unspecified internal charges and placed on administrative leave, along  with his associate, Northern Region Regional Director Mary Savage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And then there were the allegations this summer of widespread mismanagement at ComLinks, the social service agency based in Malone.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This again from the <a href=\"http:\/\/pressrepublican.com\/0100_news\/x241876514\/Audit-Comlinks-director-used-100-000-for-herself\">Plattsburgh Press-Republican<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Nancy Reich allegedly used $100,000 in ComLinks grant funds to pay for  room service, a golf-club membership, appliances for her home and  Swedish massages.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In August, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise <a href=\"http:\/\/adirondackdailyenterprise.com\/page\/content.detail\/id\/515086.html?nav=5003\">ran an editorial warning<\/a> &#8220;workers, bosses, and boards&#8221; of non-profits to be more vigilant.<\/p>\n<p>Non-profits make up a huge slice of the region&#8217;s economy, providing thousands of jobs and delivering crucial services &#8212; everything from fire protection to meals-on-wheels.<\/p>\n<p>What do you think?\u00a0 Should there be closer oversight and more scrutiny of how they spend dollars, both those received from the government and from private donors?<\/p>\n<p>Comments welcome below.<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some of the region&#8217;s biggest non-profits have earned a lot of lousy press recently, for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}