Morrison County United Way (MCUW) board closed the office for 4 months while they pursued a new executive director. Despite the time and expense gone through to locate the most qualified candidate, I was asked to resign after only 4 months and offered over 4 thousand dollars in severance pay providing I relinquished my right to discuss all matters pertaining to MCUW and my departure. The separation agreement also mandated my silence over financial matters and issues of mismanagement. I refused to resign and refused their severance pay offer but MCUW board once again elected to close the office for the second time this year. Board President Teresa Schmitz cited “communication issues” as the reason for their request.
MCUW requested my resignation because of disagreements over items that substantially hindered the efficient running of the office and the distinction between my role as executive director and their role as the governing board of directors.
During my period of employment as executive director I completed the extensive reporting requirements mandated by national United Way. These reports were part of Ted Pfohl’s transitional contract; he was paid $1,000.00 to address a short list of MCUW’s business while the board looked for a new director. The report paperwork was mailed to all United Way offices in January allowing them 4 months to compile the needed information to complete the extensive reports. These documents remained in a sealed envelope and were never opened. When I began neither the MCUW Board nor Ted Pfohl ever indicated that these reports were due, and by then some were past due. By the time I started the deadline on 2 reports had elapsed and the most extensive report was due in 10 weeks and required detail knowledge of how the organizations donation database was mapped. While, MCUW board members paid Ted to complete the work, they never saw to it that he met the terms of the contract.
Renewing MCUW’s membership with national United Way brought still other oversight issues into focus. The fees for membership renewal were already approved as part of the 2008 budget therefore I collected the needed signatures and renewed the organizations membership without delay. After I did, Board President Teresa Schmitz was angry that I did not seek board approval. Since the funds were clearly approved in the budget a second board approval seemed redundant. When I looked at the paperwork from the previous year it was apparent that the board approved the funds for membership renewal in the budget but when the time came to actually renew the membership later in the year Ted went back to the board to obtain their approval.
When I discussed the duplicated effort with Board President Teresa Schmitz she insisted that any expenditure regardless of an approved budget required board approval but her assertion didn’t exist in any policy. Clearly such repetitiveness defeats the purpose of going through the budgeting process, wasting valuable time of the director and board members. I then asked state coordinator Doris Pagelkopf to weigh in on the discussion but when Doris’ response mirrored my recommendations executive committee members summarily dismissed her input. I then requested that board president Teresa Schmitz seek the advice of other United Way’s which she agreed to do but only until she learned that all area offices operated under very similar procedures.
During a corresponding executive committee meetings committee members elected to disregard the input offered by me and other regional directors regarding financial procedures including best practices from Price Waterhouse supplied by Doris Pagelkopf at the state office. After back logging the MCUW office with a 4 months shutdown executive committee members reaffirmed their decision to maintaining redundant financial procedures. Board President Teresa Schmitz said that they were “re instituting old unused policies that existed but were never written down.” This essentially meant that executive committee members planned to ad lib even if it included the use of decoder rings and invisible ink. She said that she took the liberty of writing the unwritten, unused policies then stated that the executive committee would not seek the approval of the full board in implementing them even though they hadn’t been used. President Schmitz of course knew that I would challenge the implementation of redundant policies should they go before the full board and the measure could have easily failed. Circumventing full board approval assured that the terms of the executive committee would be met regardless of my recommendations and regardless of the will of the full board of directors.
During the 2008 audit Gary Paulson posted 98,000.00 in adjustment to MCUW’s books. Essentially the board of directors had spent the last year looking at erroneous figures on financial reports due to accounting inaccuracies and apparently no one noticed anything was amiss. In an effort to find cause to dismiss me Executive Committee members began going over my work with a fine-toothed comb which included my accounting but found no faults in my bookkeeping. Had this caliber of attention to detail been an ongoing act of necessary organizational oversight it is likely that the previous errors would have been noted, instead thorough oversight was merely applied after it was apparent that the board was displeased with my objections.
When I was first hired Curt Hanson and Teresa Schmitz told me repeatedly that the executive directors job “wasn’t really a full-time job”, despite a 30 thousand dollar revenue shortfall, the lack of oversight of federal emergency dollars, the need for additional funding for the Imagination Library and failure to comply with national UW mandates, I was repeatedly told to slow down, to take baby steps regardless of the needs of community and the organization.
It was made clear to me that if I pushed to get the organization on track as soon as realistically possible that I was risking the security of my job and the closer I came to accomplishing necessary organizational objectives the more MCUW executive committee members looped me out of communication. Teresa Schmitz even threatened to close the office and past board President Curt Hanson warned that he was trying to mediate between me and executive committee members to prevent me from being dismissed. I said, “I have to slow down? And he said “yes.” Despite making outstanding strides with regard to fortifying the organization the executive committee showed no interest in the improvements being made. The only conclusion I am able to draw from these very circumstances is that the more successful I was as a brand new director the more it illustrated what could have and should have been accomplished all along. Executive committee members very deliberately and constructively interfered with competent administrative decisions.
I have no doubt that my job would have been safe if I had done as they suggested, I could have worked a little, played golf and remained employed. The more effective I was at moving the organization towards efficient thriving operations the more ridiculous executive committee demands became. Board president Teresa Schmitz wanted me write and edit her email communications to board members because she said I was a better writer and she didn’t want to feel “dumb”. She was mad when amidst working with the auditor that I failed to find time to edit her email Given what the organization was paying for the audit I almost couldn’t believe that she remained angry even after I told her what I was working on. She complained that she had to send the email without review and that now she felt “dumb.” I apologized and was sorry that she was so upset but found myself almost in a state of disbelief over the entire conversation. She also asked me to file 2 page cost benefit analysis reports on saving the organization money and the report had to include a spreadsheet and be presented for approval at a board meeting.
A specific example is that MCUW was using AT&T’s most expensive long distance calling plan. I closed the account and bundled the organizations long distance with its existing local phone service with Qwest. This move saved MCUW about 200.00 a month having secured unlimited long distances for about 30.00 a month. When Teresa asked me to file a cost benefit analysis report on the savings and requested board approval I refused. The organization was in the middle of it audit and there wasn’t time. I left her the option to either move the organization back to its expensive, existing calling plan or wait until I had time to compile the report. She said if I didn’t cooperate that there simply wouldn’t be a MCUW office. I maintained that there were so many matters of urgency that taking a section of my work day to assemble such a report would be negligent and it was not procedurally required. I did suggest however that the organization consider drafting a policy that established an ongoing reviews of all vendor accounts to ensure that the organization was getting the best price and using the most current technology.
For example the postage meter from Pitney Bowes was expensive and the equipment leased was so out dated that it was being taken out of circulation. Stacks of returned mail could have been avoided had the account been updated with current technology that screens addresses for accuracy. Such a change would have improved efficiently and saved the organization money on leasing, wasted postage and address labels and also the time spent labeling mailers. Also, the Qwest phone account had not been updated since the office was opened in the 1960’s.
Ted Pfohl told local radio announcer Rod Grams that as executive director, he golfed in as many as 30 tournaments in a summer. While the organization justified such indulgences as “fundraising and PR” there was no indication that such activity netted any financial benefit to the organization. It is unclear as to who paid for his participation although I do recall seeing mileage reimbursement for what appeared to be a golf trip so it is likely that some if not all of the golf events were paid for by MCUW. I believe that as part of Ted’s contract that MCUW also paid for an annual membership to an area country club and remember, he was not expected to work full time and often didn’t.
Regardless of who paid for golf involvements the working hours spent alone is an issue given the lack of oversight to programs like the EF program. Also Ted indicated that if he used the UW office at all that he always left early afternoon therefore he turned down the board’s offer to purchase an air conditioner for the office.
That having been said, the MCUW office is located in a historic building and its office is located beneath the clock tower in the courthouse. The office has 6 -10 foot windows on 2 sides of the tower which in the summer is equal to being shut in a glass box in the sunshine. As the summer grew hot the inside of the office spiked on some days registering temperatures in excess of 110 degrees. Despite dollars for office expenses pre-approved in the 2008 budget, MCUW executive committee refused to allow the purchase of an air conditioning unit without full board approval. While awaiting said approval I was forced to either work in temperatures similar to shutting the family dog in the car on a hot day or shut down early. On one day when trying to complete reporting requirement for United Way of America I became very ill from the heat, after that I was left no option but to do as Ted had done , which was to leave early or to stay and try to work in conditions that violated OSHA standards. I argued that an air conditioner was not optional due to OSHA standards and causing further shut downs and slow downs to the flow of MCUW work was causing unnecessary delays to items that were already inexcusably over due.
The first request for approval of an air conditioner failed because it was put to a vote over email and apparently number of board members simply didn’t vote while still others contended it was unnecessary because they knew people who didn’t have air conditioning at home despite the obvious differences between the structure of a home and the structure of a glassed clock tower. Teresa Schmitz attempted to commiserate with me regarding the extreme conditions citing that her air conditioner at Morey’s Seafood didn’t work properly. I pointed out that Morey’s was a packing plant with existing extreme temperatures certified by OSHA and that our office circumstances could not be compared since her health was not being placed at risk.
President Schmitz was so offended that I referenced Morey’s as a packing plant that she said she nearly resigned as board president. Curt Hanson, according to her, talked her out of the resignation. I apologized sincerely not having intended to offend her but to this day have no idea what part she found so upsetting. Morey’s is a packing plant, it wasn’t an insult but a mere statement of fact. I spent another hour reassuring her that I meant no disrespect.
In the end the office was shut down repeatedly and an air conditioning unit was not approved until the end of July. I found it staggering that MCUW would pay for Ted’s time away from the office to golf without board approval or regard to the cost to the organization and his time away but my request to be provided with the barest of necessities with which to complete a full day’s work was summarily denied for a period of months.
Much of the board’s activity took place via email from each board members place of employment. As executive director I was often excluded from communications, denied information as to how board members voted. Executive Committee members circumvented me as the organizations executive director. I was the only individual with previous non profit administration experience and I understood that MCUW could not be administered as a corporation or an institution yet my input and that of other non profit administrators was ignored completely.
I was informed at the August 2008 board meeting that a quorum had been changed from 8 but 5. President Teresa Schmitz again said it was an old unused, probably once again unwritten policy that she was reinstating despite the fact that 8 had previously been the quorum for some time. To my knowledge this change also never came to a full board vote. When I later asked for board minutes I was summarily denied on more than once occasion. I believe the state minimum for a quorum for MCUW is 6 but even changing the definition of a quorum to a legal minimum should at least be voted on. Changing a quorum to 5 would mean that votes could be carried by the executive committee alone..
MCUW breached the Gift in Kind contracts taking 7 thousand dollars a month in durable goods away from the community. (See Gifts In Kind Website)
I question whether MCUW followed proper procedures in requesting my resignation.
Request by me and members of the community and news media to obtain copies of board documents have also been denied.
The separation agreements provided mandates the secrecy of information that should be public within the non profit sector. Acceptance of severance pay would have prevented me from alerting proper authorities. Tax exemption is provided in exchange for transparency, their dealing have been anything but transparent.
Board members did not represent the interests of their constituents or their own mission statement.The MCUW Board had no strategic plan with which to accomplish its stated mission and policies were non existent or went unused.
Executive committee members circumvented the full board on issue of critical importance that should have been voted on, such as financial procedures.
Board did not ensure compliance with national UW or with regard to conflicts of interest issues.
Grant reports were not filed with Bremer Foundation, Initiative Foundation and those due for the federal emergency funds. These circumstances can effect future funding and could prevent Morrison County from obtaining federal emergency dollars for next year.
In the past 11 months MCUW office has only been open for 4 months.
