Charities Waiting For $318M

In April 2005, Long Island's state lawmakers voted for a $104.5-billion budget that promised a little something extra for charities such as Parents for Megan's Law in Stony Brook, Our Lady of Perpetual Help church in Lindenhurst and the Bellmore-Merrick Tornados.

Three years later, the checks are not quite in the mail.

New York State still hadn't been able to give away 25 percent of the "member-item" money Long Island's senators promised to their local charities for the 2005 budget year by Feb. 1 of this year, according to Senate records provided to Newsday under the Freedom of Information Law.

Of the grant money announced for 2006, 41 percent remained unspent as of February, while two thirds of the money promised for 2007 still hadn't been doled out.

What's the holdup?

Chalk it up to voluminous paperwork, strict reporting requirements, processing delays and a system of checks and balances that now zigs and zags through at least five different state offices before the money can flow.

Charities that get funds from New York State soon learn they are government contractors, and that means scrutiny - lots of it, from the governor's budget office to agency lawyers, the attorney general and state comptroller.

Wait often more than 2 years

Lawmakers now tell those promised money that they can expect the process to take a good 2 1/2 years, a Senate spokesman said, although many groups said they receive their money much faster. While they wait, the money waits too, in a state fund known as 007, which as of May 31 held $318.8 million, according to the state comptroller's office.

"The paperwork is a pain in the neck," said Robert Kerning, the former president of the Valley Stream Green Hornets youth football team, which was still waiting this year for the $2,500 promised by Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) in 2005 - and another $2,500 Skelos secured for the team in 2004.

Kerning said he took the club's reins from another parent, not realizing he was supposed to file annual financial reports. Still, he opts to look on the bright side of the funding delay. "I laughed with my board a couple of times, [that] it was nice to see they were actually making sure what the money was being used for."

The state comes in for a share of the blame. State agencies do a "dismal" job of processing the more than 60,000 contracts they handle, including member items, according to State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

Interest payments required

Despite a state law requiring New York to pay interest penalties when it delays processing contracts with nonprofits, 70 percent of state agencies last year did not pay contracts on time, the comptroller found.

Marcia Spector, executive director of the Suffolk Network on Adolescent Pregnancy (SNAP), said her agency has had to take out bridge loans to tide it over while waiting for basic renewal grants.

"The bureaucracy is just too cumbersome to manage," Spector said.

Still, an examination of one state agency's records on member items shows that much of the delay in funding occurs before an agency is ever asked for the money.

Of 1,002 member-item grants referred to the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation under the March 2006 state budget, 230 - more than one in five - still had not delivered a request for the funds as of last month, that agency's records show.

Sometimes that's because their grants specify that recipients must finish their projects first, and then turn in their receipts. That was the case for a music program for cancer patients at Hewlett House, and for the Mandalay Homeowners Association's neighborhood beautification project in Wantagh.

But frequently, as in the case of the Valley Stream Green Hornets, the groups are simply flummoxed by all the red tape.

By BY ELIZABETH MOORE
Posted Monday, July 21, 2008

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