July 18, 2002
Alexandria’s Donna Kloch will not be reappointed to serve on the Board of Directors of the United Way of the National Capital Area but Councilman William D. Euille will serve on the Board for one more year.
As news of the nominations to the new Board was released, a federal grand jury subpoenaed items from the organization’s records. Board members learned of the subpoenas through articles in the press.
“I would have thought that we would have received a telephone call and/or an E-mail immediately after the FBI came to the offices,” Euille said. “I got a copy of an E-mail that was sent to all United Way employees from Norman Taylor last night at 7:21 p.m. So far we have gotten nothing that was addressed to the Board. This is a very inappropriate way to do business. We shouldn’t have to learn about this kind of thing in the media. It’s far too important.”
THE FEDERAL GRAND JURY has asked for, among other things, a list of the Board of Directors and financial records, pension records and information about money collected and disbursed. FBI agents arrived at the offices at 95 M Street, NW, in the District, on July 16. They registered in the lobby, logging their names and that they were with the FBI.
Kim Mitchell, the chairperson of the Alexandria Board, has asked for a copy of the liability policy covering voluntary board members. She made the request originally in March 2002, but has yet to receive anything.
“There is certainly reason to be concerned,” Euille said. “In light of the grand jury subpoenas, I believe that we should delay the vote on new officers and a new Board of Directors. There may be those who have second thoughts about serving on the Board under the circumstances.”
TAYLOR'S MEMORANDUM to the staff had a note at the bottom listing the level of importance of the investigation as “normal.”
Euille reacted by saying, “We clearly need to make it clear to the officers and to the staff that this is of extreme importance,” he said. “We must produce the documents that the grand jury has requested in an expeditious way. I would hardly call the situation normal.”
There is some concern about actions that management may take against the Alexandria United Way. Consultants for the National Capitol Area United Way are looking into the feasibility of combining Alexandria with Arlington or Fairfax as a way to save money. “While there might be some savings, this is clearly being considered to punish us for speaking out,” Euille said. “If we were to be combined with Fairfax, we would be swallowed. I think that we could work out some arrangement with Arlington but I believe that Alexandria should remain a stand-alone unit. The Alexandria United Way has provided valuable services to this community for many years and shown that it is very capable of raising funds to support its work.”
Kloch agreed with Euille. “If anything, they should be decentralizing the staff, not centralizing,” she said. “The local United Ways are the heart and soul of the organization. That’s where the real work is done. We should be bringing more staff into the localities instead of the other way around.”
Both Euille and Kloch got into trouble with some members of the Board and staff when they openly questioned management practices. Both stated publicly that they thought the chairman of the board and the executive director were slow to respond to questions about expense accounts and other issues that were raised last summer by a former Board member.
"When I saw the list of nominees and my name was not on that list, I just assumed that I would not be on the Board anymore,” Euille said. “Then I got an E-mail from United Way and they told me that I was appointed for a two-year term last year so my current term would not expire until 2003.”
THERE WAS NO SUCH confusion over Kloch’s reappointment, however. She has served on the Board for nearly 10 years and will not be reappointed. “I am disappointed that my motives for asking questions about management practices and for talking to the press have been misinterpreted,” Kloch said. “I do believe that management has learned some things because of all of this. We have a functioning bylaws committee for the first time in a long while and the Administration and Finance Committee is playing a larger role. However, management still wants to maintain far more control than they should. They are still reluctant to provide information to Board members that should be readily available.”
“I would have thought that someone might have notified me that I was not being reappointed but that didn’t happen,” Kloch said. She learned that her name was not included in the list of nominees only after she called a member of the nominating committee.
The new Board will be installed later this week at the organization’s annual retreat. No decision about combining any of the local United Way organizations will be made until some time in the fall.