How to avoid another FCADV scandal, betrayal of public trust

The state is trying to subpoena Tiffany Carr, pictured alongside former Gov. Jeb Bush, over allegations of exorbitant payment.

As shocking, shameful, and indefensible as the scandal is that has mushroomed around the Florida Council Against Domestic Violence (FCADV), imagine what the horror must be like for the many innocent bystanders.

I’m talking about those dedicated staff who went to work every day at the FCADV or in the many programs it was created to help support, because they wanted to help victims of domestic violence.

Imagine being one of the domestic violence shelters whose fragile world was blown off its stable orbit by this growing abomination that has rocked Tallahassee and all of Florida.

Or one of the lawyers or lobbyists who represented the coalition without knowing about the self-created, festering, and lethal cancer growing inside it.

Or the accountants and auditors who reviewed coalition budgets with numbers they were provided by the organization and determined that they complied with accounting standards — because the board DID approve and authorize the amounts that were actually distributed.

This outrageous set of still-emerging facts and truths about FCADV is arguably the biggest story of this Legislative Session era — other than the growing threat of the coronavirus.

The depth of deception, greed, and callous disregard for responsibility shocks the sensibilities of any honest public servant, legislator, hard-working nonprofit world executive, reporter or average taxpayer.

We’re all still reeling from the revelation that the coalition’s CEO, Tiffany Carr, deeply enriched herself in a colossal betrayal of public trust — and she is nowhere to be found so far, like an outlaw on the run.

It’s becoming increasingly clear how this treacherous scheme happened and was sustained for so many years. It’s clear the state oversight agency attempted to do its job, but it ran headlong into an unresponsive organization that repeatedly stonewalled the agency.

While we don’t have all the facts yet, they’re going to come out eventually.

And, even as the state of Florida’s deserved lawsuit against FCADV was announced this past week by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody, it’s a sure thing that other state and federal investigations will be undertaken.

Just as important now is figuring out how to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.

With that in mind, I reviewed some of the coalition’s 990s — the forms they must submit to the IRS every year to disclose, among other things, executive compensation.

The 990s show that the coalition’s financial records were audited by James Moore & Company, a highly respected statewide accounting firm that reliably audits books of countless nonprofits over the years, among a roster of other clients in the private and public sectors.

So I went to the James Moore website, where I found some smart suggestions that provide a guiding light to a positive path for other organizations to avoid the quagmire surrounding FCADV.

Ideas on best practices to embrace or evolve toward include:

— Clear policies to establish how executive compensation within an organization is determined and that senior executive salaries be comparable to those of similar positions in similar organizations.

— Strict conflict of interest policies, ensuring that board members don’t have outside interests that could wrongly influence – or appear to influence – their board duties. And that their livelihoods can’t be directly, positively affected by the organization’s revenue stream, decisions or actions.

— Processes to suspend or remove the organization’s CEO for cause, and to educate board members of their larger responsibility to call out inappropriate executive behavior.

— Better board orientation and training so members clearly understand their individual and collective fiduciary duties and how to carry out their duties effectively.

— In-person board meetings and regular oversight of the CEO, including reviews of performance, compensation and benefits, as well as training to ensure that all board members understand financial statements, audits and IRS Form 990s.

The James Moore folks’ website also suggests appropriate reforms that could be considered by legislators and other policymakers — through new or amended rules, laws, policies and procedures. These include assuring that when a nonprofit receives or administers state or federal funds, the oversight agency has adequate resources to do its job; establishing financial penalties if funded organizations’ executives fail to provide requested oversight information promptly; and providing more oversight and power to quickly intervene and take control of any ‘runaway train’ organization, leader or board.

All these bullet points make so much sense that you have to wonder why more of them are not already in place – everywhere.

But let’s stay positive.

While these sensible ideas could help a lot of organizations, they might not prevent a motivated swindler from taking advantage of their position to replicate an FCADV-level scandal. But they can surely make an important difference among most organizations.

So, let’s go there.

We have learned that Carr stacked her board and her uppermost staff with hand-picked loyalists who were either overtly complicit, willfully blind, or living and breathing a daily conflict of interest.

Only with board approval could she have pocketed $7.5 million in unjustified payments from funds that were supposed to help victims of abuse.

It’s time for all of Florida’s ‘good guy’ organizations — in the quasi-public or nonprofit sectors that serve so many people in diverse areas of need — to review their own policies, procedures and protocols.

Protect the organization’s mission, the public interest, and taxpayers’ or donors’ dollars by embracing standards of the kind the James Moore CPAs have freely shared.

Whatever it costs is nothing compared to what it saves: public trust, targeted dollars going to the mission, and ongoing reliable service.