Prominently displayed on the wall behind Mike Lehman’s desk who took over the helm of the local community action agency is a list of the programs administered by ORCCA (Oregon Coast Community Action) such as Head Start and the SCFS (South Coast Food Share) and their respective fund balances. Lehman replaced Mary Schoen-Clark who was pummeled by The World last year in a series of articles that criticized her management style while ignoring the larger underlying concern of the stability of the organization.
According to Lehman’s list the federally funded SCFS, the region’s primary food bank supplying pantries relied upon by hungry people up and down the coast is $170,000 in the hole. This is significant because the federal grants funding the food bank are dedicated funds and operational budgets are approved by ORCCA’s board of directors so the only way the program can be in the red is if funds have been diverted to other programs or to the general administrative fund. If documents prove to be correct the SCFS may not be able to maintain its contracted service levels which is bad enough but ORCCA’s accounting is reportedly so poor that it is unclear if the $170K figure is even accurate or how long it has been accumulating.
MGx is in possession of internal documents which raise serious questions about ongoing board manipulation and operational incompetence across many of the agency’s programs as well as special deals cut between management and administrative staff. ORCCA grew under Schoen-Clark to a $10 million a year organization but now Lehman has been overheard saying that ORCCA cannot pay its bills.
Lehman has responded positively to my request to meet to discuss ORCCA’s finances and operations. More to come!
Yes absolutely agree with Gloria. Look deeper in the financials of ORCCA. Why are head start funds being diverted to pay for ORCCA debt? Does Regional Head Start know? Violation of Head Start regulations. Yes, Lehman has overpowered and manipulated the ORCCA board since his arrival. The agency is in such disarray and in financial ruin. ORCCA has trouble paying its bill each month. Why?
Please, let us not lose sight of the manipulation that went into this debacle. The World newspaper did a really really , in my opinion, intense job of taking down the management of ORCCA. They did it systematically with Danny Stoddard leading the charge. Danny was the first rewarded by Mike Lehman, in fact,if Mr. Precourt is serious and honest, he will take the time to search this issue in his archives and take responsibility for the ‘right in front of our eyes’ take down of this organization. It was relentless, Clark worked overtime no doubt to direct the operation. It was a remarkable thing to see, people lost careers, were publicly shamed through that damned paper every day for months. I’ve never seen anything like it in a local community. Forget about LNG, if they can do this successfully, and plant Lehman’s arse there, they control the funding. Ask why Lehman sits on the airport board, another source of Free Money for him to control? Why? What’s in it for Lehman? Forget Precourt, he could have studied the most recent papers and found out himself what had occured. He didn’t, he’s just declaring his innocence to save his own arse, my opinion only. We shall see.I think he’s just another ‘news’ guy who wants to stick to happy times and recipes and smiley babies and puppies, well look at his Facebook page.
Sheesh, people getting panties in a bunch as if the talk was about a public entity. 🙂
The article leaves the reader with a large WHY? Why the deficit? Why are occasional audits of the books not required? Why wasn’t an audit a priority item for Lehman upon arrival knowing there had been problems? Is someone has cooked the books, will they be prosecuted?
There is MUCH more to come but I have a mountain of stuff to go through first
There is more than you know, look beyond the obvious and dig deeper.. you will find so many inaccuracies. The board of directors has been manipulated and used to gain control of ORCCA. How can people that work at SCFS receive raises when there is such a deficit in the dept when the board said no raises.
Obviously Mary Schoen-Clark needed some form of criticism… How ironic if embezzlement is found.
There is nothing to imply embezzling. The books, however, haven’t been closed out in a long while