MYCAP director placed on leave
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning/Youngstown Community Action Partnership board has placed its executive director on unpaid administrative leave.
The decision by the board at a Friday emergency meeting to suspend Richard A. Roller II comes after the agency received sharp criticism from the Ohio Department of Development and its Office of Community Services.
Jamael Tito Brown, MYCAP board vice chairman, and member DeMaine Kitchen, both city councilmen, confirmed the decision to place Roller on leave.
Roller earns at least $90,000 annually in salary, Brown and Kitchen said.
“The board’s taken control of the agency and is letting the state know we’re committed to the agency and the board’s integrity,” Brown said. “We’re letting the state know how serious we are and that we want to right the wrongs.”
Community services designated MYCAP as “high risk,” meaning grant funds given to the Youngstown-based agency are “vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse.”
MYCAP is a nonprofit agency that administers 11 programs in Mahoning County to help the poor and disadvantaged and is involved in programs ranging from the Home Weatherization Assistance Program to the Community Services Block Grant.
In January, ODOD issued a preliminary report on its review of MYCAP financial records for possible misuse of funds, nepotism, conflict of interest and a number of other issues, including weatherization work done at Roller’s home.
Roller couldn’t be reached Friday by The Vindicator to comment.
Richard Atkinson, board chairman, at first refused to comment on Roller’s suspension, but called later Friday, after talking to his attorney, and confirmed the action.
Brown said he and Kitchen have “been screaming about unpaid administrative leave from the moment we received the report from the state. The rest of the board finally agreed with us.”
Also, Percy Squire, MYCAP’s attorney who was raised in Youngstown but lives in Columbus, resigned as the agency’s legal counsel in a letter dated April 12.
Atkinson said new legal counsel was hired at a previous board meeting.
Squire, when asked Friday if he resigned to distance himself from the board, said it was just the opposite.
“I wanted MYCAP to distance itself from me,” he said, saying he has issues of his own.
Squire said, in his opinion, ODOD does not have the statutory authority to designate MYCAP as “high risk,” and may have violated Ohio’s “whistle-blower” law by investigating Roller.
“None of this would have happened if Roller had not notified the state of an internal investigation,” he said.
Squire’s is not the only resignation at MYCAP.
At least five members of MYCAP’s board of directors have recently resigned, although it is not known if they left the board because of the state review.
The MYCAP board has 18 members made up one-third each from the public, private and low-income sectors.
Confirmed resignations are George Garchar of Diocese of Youngstown Catholic Charities and Todd Marian of Help Hotline, both from the private sector; and Atty. Christine Lebow, representing low-income residents.
Garchar resigned March 15 and Marian either late in December 2009 or in January 2010.
A DOD document sent to Roller earlier this month asked the agency to provide written documentation that two vacancies in the low-income sector and three vacancies in the private sector had been filled, indicating there were at least that many resignations or expired terms.
Also, Kitchen and Brown, whose board terms expired Dec. 31, said they expect to leave the board shortly unless the state asks them to remain on an interim basis.
Meanwhile, a document sent anonymously Friday to The Vindicator shows Kitchen’s wife didn’t include her husband’s income on a MYCAP form for their children to attend a Head Start program.
Kitchen said his wife, Leslie, was told by a MYCAP official to not include his salary because the family pays the full fee for their children to attend the Tender Care Learning Center on the city’s East Side.
One child goes to the center, and the other had attended it.
Elzenia Lampley, Tender Care’s owner, confirmed that the Kitchens paid the full fee for their daughters.
Kitchen said Roller or the executive director’s allies probably gave the form to the newspaper in an attempt to discredit him.
Kitchen added that he wondered why his wife had to fill out the form, signed Oct. 9, 2008.
“It’s fishy,” he said.
Attempts by The Vindicator to contact Lois Clark, MYCAP’s Head Start director, were unsuccessful.