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MYCAP looks to restore public confidence
YOUNGSTOWN
Restoring financial stability and rebuilding the community’s confidence in the agency are major goals of Mahoning-Youngstown Community Action Partnership leaders as it moves forward after a year of scandal and financial troubles.
“We are going to continue to rebuild community confidence in the agency and to strengthen the board of directors,” said Jamael Tito Brown, board chairman.
“Amazing things can happen when amazing people come together,” said Marilyn J. McDaniel, new agency executive director and chief operating officer of the interim executive-management team brought in last November by MYCAP to help the agency get back on its feet. And that is what happened in Youngstown, she said.
“I want to recognize the board members who stayed during this difficult time and dug in and did the hard work that resulted in the state-imposed risk status being removed. Some agencies take years to come out of risk status; MYCAP did in about a year,” she said.
Also, McDaniel and David N. Waggoner, the agency’s new fiscal director, said MYCAP has a strong staff that knows what it is doing and made sure services continued to be provided even while carrying the burden of the reputation of the agency being damaged and receiving criticism from the community.
The Youngstown-based MYCAP administers 11 programs in Mahoning County to help poor and disadvantaged people.
It was just over a year ago when the Ohio Department of Development, a major funding source for MYCAP, designated the agency “high-risk” after conducting a financial audit.
The investigation led to the resignation of several board members and the board’s dismissal of several senior executive staff members, including Richard Roller III, former agency director.
The high-risk designation meant that grant funds given to the agency were considered “vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse,” state officials said.
“It is a very satisfying experience for me as a professional to be able to assist an organization that is so meaningful to its customers and its community to get back on its feet and continue to grow and develop,” McDaniel said.
It is good to have McDaniel here as a consultant and to provide continuity in the agency while the board searches for a long-term director, which MYCAP hopes to have in place by the end of the year, Brown said.
“We are going to do the mission, rebuild confidence and continue to strengthen the board as we search for a long-term director,” Brown said.
As fiscal director, Waggoner said he is working to clear up the problems that popped up in the last 18 months and get things squared away to where “we can focus on normal day-to-day operations and perform the mission of the agency.”
MYCAP still has a significant hurdle to clear with the Ohio Board of Education, which says the local agency owes it $877,000, part of a grant for MYCAP’s summer child- and adult-feeding programs over the last three years.
Brown said MYCAP has documented that the money was spent for eligible clients, however, and that the discrepancy is the result of poor record-keeping by previous MYCAP management.
Last week, a delegation from MYCAP went to Washington, D.C., to make its case with U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Avon, and U.S. Rep. Timothy Ryan of Niles, D-17th.
The money in question comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and flows through the state education department.
Brown said he was pleased with the responses of the federal lawmakers and came away from the meeting confident the problem will be resolved. He said MYCAP’s attorney has sent all relevant documentation to the legislators.