Five agencies that were part of a county initiative that used federal pandemic relief funds to assist neighborhood groups will be reported to the New York State Attorney General’s Office over their alleged mishandling of that money.
On Friday, the Monroe County Office of Public Integrity released its audit of the Neighborhood Collaborative Project (NCP). It alleged that agencies engaged in double-billing and self-dealing, and that the leader of one agency hired relatives and stacked training programs with friends and relatives.
The report summarized a probe into operations at the collection of small community organizations, which the county awarded $7.2 million in federal COVID relief dollars — otherwise known as ARPA funding — last year.
The county cut off funding to the effort earlier this year. That move came after the project’s fiduciary, the Community Resource Collaborative, was reported to the county by its own CEO, Anthony Hall, who alleged it mismanaged the funds. The county later dropped CRC as a contractor, and, earlier this month, Attorney General Letitia James filed to dissolve the agency, which she said was insolvent.
The findings led the county to refer Cameron Community Ministries, MC Collaborative, C3 Consulting, the Southwest Area Network (SWAN) at Montgomery Neighborhood Center to the state Attorney General’s Office for further investigation.
The lengthiest portion of the report is dedicated to Cameron.
The investigation found that the organization had partnered with two agencies to lead job training programs: CEO Kutz to provide barber training and Global Connections Enterprise to handle logistics training courses.
Global Connections was started by the husband of Cameron's executive director, Olivia Kassoum-Amadou, and at least two of the three training courses it provided had the couple’s children and a nephew, all of whom live out of state, as students. And her son, who took the class, is dating the trainer, who was living in Georgia at the time the courses were offered.
Less is known about CEO Kutz except that its invoices mirrored those of Global Connections, including similar miscalculations and billing dates, according to the audit report.
County Executive Adam Bello referred to Kassoum-Amadou as “the most egregious” example of alleged mismanagement within NCP.
“She initially failed to disclose this relationship with the Office of Public Integrity when asked, and then took steps to conceal that relationship,” Bello said, referring to Cameron’s relationship with her husband’s organization.
Kassoum-Amadou, in a phone call, said she recalled being asked about the relationships by OPI, but declined to comment further on the report, noting she had not yet read it.
The OPI report also took aim at MC Collaborative, one of the for-profit members of NCP. MC Collaborative, a social work organization, has previously contracted with the county on other programs.
The OPI report alleged that Andy Carey, the founder and leader of MC Collaborative, had overbilled the county by about $3,000 month-over-month, and failed to explain the miscalculation. It also alleged that when Carey submitted claims for reimbursement, he failed to provide a breakdown of the agency's costs and instead requested equal monthly payments for the 10-month life of the contract.
Carey, in a phone interview, said the overbilling was the result of a discrepancy in the value of social work services and the amount he was actually paying himself. Carey was paying himself $14.20 per hour for his services according to the report, less than minimum wage.
“I got paid minimum wage all of last year, but that doesn’t mean the value of my social work and supervision is worth minimum wage, if that makes sense,” Carey said. “...It’s the difference of if you bill for value or you bill for pay.”
In all, the OPI report found that NCP organizations overbilled the county $205,982.49.
While Bello stressed that the NCP was a valiant effort marred by mismanagement and, in some cases, alleged fraud, the OPI report does not spare the county either.
The report argues that the county failed to set clear deliverables for NCP organizations, had “cumbersome and inefficient” data tracking, and, perhaps most notably, an over-reliance on self-monitoring. That led to the county’s ARPA team sometimes parroting claims made by NCP organizations.
For example, the audit notes that when the NCP partners claimed they “Grossly underestimated the need that exists and the trust and credibility our agencies have in the community,” the ARPA team commented on the projects almost verbatim with that claim.
The audit also notes that at a Dec. 1, 2023, desk audit, the county ARPA team failed to note that the NCP organizations had not uploaded any of their subcontracts, had not set clear deliverables, and were submitting vouchers without any clear outline of what the money was spent on.
In April, WXXI News reported that the issues surrounding the county’s ARPA disbursements stretched well-beyond the Community Resource Collaborative, and dated well-before alarm bells were rung about that organization.
“The one thing I know is that all of the partners were working hard for the community, and there needs to be a little grace, and there has to be grace with the county too,” Carey said.
“Each month, we put in for our reimbursement, and we got paid for it, so we were under the assumption it was fine, of course.”
Earlier this year, the county attempted to revive the Neighborhood Collaborative Project under a new fiscal partner, disability services agency Starbridge. Legislators blocked that contract.
Bello said the county has submitted its finding to the FBI. Investigations by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Treasury Department, and the state Attorney General’s office are ongoing as well.
He said the Neighborhood Collaborative Project was a laudable effort to bring small organizations with highly specialized services into underserved communities.
But whether by fraud, incompetence, or a mix of the two, that effort is now dead.
“We will not let the intentions of a few bad actors jeopardize the progress in the communities that need them the most,” Bello said. “But it's also my job to hold people accountable when they take advantage of situations.”
