Myra Caridad Garcia, V.I.D.A. Executive Director |
What V.I.D.A (an acronym for Valley Initiative for Development and Advancement) offers, according to the I.R.S. Form 990(Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax) is to provide "job training assistance." Job training assistance is neither job training, that is teaching the skills that make a person hireable, or any form of tangible assistance.
It involves, according to information provided by V.I.D.A., one hour of consultation per month with a V.I.D.A. counselor and a once a week group session with other V.I.D.A. trainees about what they're doing to find work and get off welfare.
One might assume that most of those bases were already covered by the Texas Workforce, our public schools and universities and the welfare system, but clever people find little niches where a charity can fit and promote itself and V.I.D.A. has done a great job doing just that. The first two GBIC meetings we attended, V.I.D.A. reps were there, either to kindly thank the Brownsville taxpayer entity for their generous stipend to their work or express in economic development code language how well their work was going. The GBIC gave the group $302,000 this year. To justify that kind of money, the V.I.D.A rep claimed more than once that, during the past calendar year, the group had assisted 43 Brownsville residents, who had been on welfare, into jobs paying "on average $35,000 per year. There was no documentation of this claim. One GBIC board member was curious as to what companies or types of companies were hiring these people at that rate. The answer was extremely vague, as in "mostly technology, but sometimes nursing."
The Harlingen City Commission chose to no longer fund V.I.D.A., based on a recommendation of the Harlingen Economic Development Corporation, despite the fact that V.I.D.A.'s claim of success in Harlingen was even grander than Brownsville's, 93 off welfare in one year, but at the same "average salary of $35,000." My email to Harlingen Mayor Tom Boswell for more detail was returned "undeliverable," so I was not able to get more detail on their reasoning.
Someone sent me a link to V.I.D.A.'s I.R.S. 990, which has some interesting numbers. V.I.D.A. received $4,175,516 in grants and contributions from cities in the Rio Grande Valley during 2011, $913,907 of which was spent on salaries, $124, 467 to Myra Caridad Garcia, the Executive Director. Despite the economic hard times and all the work V.I.D.A. does for us, they had $731,300 in the bank at the end of the year.
Carlos Marin |
While we wish to thank the anonymous commenter who sent us a copy of V.I.D.A.'s Form 990 return, we never got a response from Executive Director Myra Garcia with out request for more information about the program. Below is our request sent 10/9/13:
More detail on V.I.D.A.
Ms. Garcia,
The rep for V.I.D.A. shared some of your group's successes at the recent GBIC board meeting. He mentioned 43 graduates from the Brownsville program in the fiscal year, now finding jobs with income averaging $35,000 per year.
Would it be possible to get more detail on this? What companies in Brownsville are employing these people? What is the salary range for low to high? How many salaried personnel does V.I.D.A. employ? How many volunteers, if any?
Thanks,
Jim Barton
Wow! No documentation and GBIC has given them that kind of money without having any proof of results. Another mordida program that appears to misuse funding meant to provide a hand up, instead they kept it as a hand out to their own pockets. Shameful. Investigation by the State is definitely required. A million dollars and nothing to show for it. Wow.
ReplyDeleteSome real concerns here:
ReplyDelete1) Duty to Disclose
IRS says: In connection with any actual or possible conflict of interest, an interested person must disclose all material facts to the directors and members of committees with governing board delegated powers considering the proposed transaction or arrangement.
IRS states that a 'disqualified person' is a member of the family of any individual. Is the VIDA board paying attention here??
http://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1023/ar03.html
2) Supplanting or co-mingling of funds
Since VIDA receives some Federal funding, those monies must be specifically budgeted and/or received for one project may not be used to support another. Where a recipient's or subrecipient's accounting system cannot comply with this requirement, the recipient or subrecipient shall establish a system to provide adequate fund accountability for each project it has been awarded.
By what has been reported in this blog and reviewing the 990, it does not appear that their records are in great shape.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/supplant
Have we ever seen any statistics about the number of jobs created or number of people who got jobs from these programs. We often see the amounts of money provided for these organizations and we hear about plans for job training, but we never see any results.....jobs obtained by those in training or jobs created through the jobs programs. We know that V.I.D.A. and United Way have programs, but we never see results of those programs. United Way has a veterans coalition, but we never hear how many veterans get jobs because of those programs. The administrators for V.I.D.A and United Way get big salaries; can we assume that our donations stop at the top....or, do these agencies lack transparency, just like local government. These organizations don't seem to want the public to know anything about their programs....good or bad.
ReplyDeleteWhy on earth would anyone give money to United Way? So they can rake money for themselves off the top of your contribution, and then they choose who they would like to receive your monies?? No thanks! They are poverty pimps, one and all!
DeleteFor anyone inclined to donate any monies to charity...Give Locally and Give Directly to the Charity, not through some politically connected conduit agency! Most decent nonprofits will be more than happy to give donors a tour of what they do, and may even ask you to volunteer! Instead of United Way, how about YOUR WAY!