St. Augustines Elderly center

[WNYresident]

Hey on channel two they are talking about a community center which helps the elderly is running short on cash.

That's not a government help center? It's a for profit elderly service company?

[kernwatch]

St Augustine's is a non-profit community center, long an active player in efforts to stabilize the East Side.

I attended weekly "YPC" meetings there over several years, long led by deposed Common Council member Charlie Fisher & St Augustine administrator Annette Peoples (has died of cnacer, which focused on outh planning issues.

Over recent years the agency has suffered funding cuts and very troubled management leading now to its possible demise.

Dick Kern (in Mpls)


COPY:
State may close St. Augustine Center
By SANDRA TAN
News Staff Reporter
2/8/2006

St. Augustine Center, a troubled East Side human services agency, is in danger of being shut down by court order if it can't meet its payroll and pay back wages for employees who have been without paychecks for weeks.
The state Labor Department has filed a show cause order asking the State Supreme Court to force St. Augustine to come up with $675,000 in payroll costs and penalties or face closure, Erie County Social Services Commissioner Michael Weiner confirmed Tuesday.

"The agency continues to fail to pay its employees and meet its obligations," he said.

The case is set for a hearing before State Supreme Court Justice John A. Michalek on Thursday.

The center has been in financial turmoil for more than a year, buried under debts, mismanagement and personnel turnover. The Social Services Department, a primary funder of St. Augustine, suspended new referrals to the agency's long-term and foster care programs last spring.

Meanwhile, former and current employees have bombarded the Labor Department with complaints that the agency has failed to consistently issue payroll checks since 2005.

The Labor Department is demanding that St. Augustine pay more than $300,000 in back wages and penalties to current and former employees and set aside another $300,000 to ensure future payroll demands, Weiner said. If it can't, the Labor Department wants St. Augustine out of business.

Weiner said the county will decide how to proceed in its relationship with St. Augustine based on what happens Thursday.

"We're going to wait and see how the court handles this matter," he said.

St. Augustine's Executive Director Jacqueline Mines was unable to provide detailed reports regarding the agency's fiscal standing when its problems came to light early last year.

Since then, St. Augustine has lost the Amer-I-Can program, a national life management skills program that at one time served about 140 high school students.

H. McCarthy Gipson, the new police commissioner, had been chairman of St. Augustine's Board of Directors since last year. Gipson, who said he resigned the post Friday, declined to comment Tuesday on the agency's situation.


e-mail: stan@buffnews.com

[kernwatch]

COPY:

Judge gives St. Augustine Center 30 days to fix problems or face shutdown
By MATT GRYTA
News Staff Reporter
2/10/2006

St. Augustine Center, one of the oldest human services agencies on the East Side, has 30 days to get its long-troubled house in order before the State Supreme Court begins taking steps to shut it down for good.
Justice John A. Michalek bowed to a request by Assemblywoman Crystal D. Peoples, D-Buffalo, giving her a month to devise a plan to save an organization in desperate need of miracles to survive.

Peoples made a surprise appearance in court Thursday, pledging to clean house and oust St. Augustine's current leaders, including Jacqueline Mines, its executive director.

St. Augustine has been in and out of court for more than a year as it struggles to continue providing services to foster children and the elderly while burdened with huge debts accumulated through years of fraud and mismanagement.

The state Labor Department has been aggressively seeking $675,000 from the agency for payroll expenses and penalties resulting from failure to pay dozens of employees who essentially found themselves working for nothing.

Thursday, Michalek ordered agency administrators to immediately provide the state attorney general's office with proof of their claims that the agency's 60 current employees received their paychecks last Friday. He also ordered the center to provide such proof on future paychecks. Peoples, a former St. Augustine employee, said she and her staff hope to come up with a turnaround plan for the agency. But if it proves impossible, she said, she will support the court-ordered closing of the center and the transfer of its programs to other groups.

Assistant Attorney General Richard Balletta said other state, local government and community-based agencies stand ready to take over the assistance programs run by St. Augustine.

Balletta noted that the state Labor Department and the attorney general's office have been trying without success since last April to get Mines and her staff to correct problems.

Speaking on behalf of St. Augustine, attorney Terrence D. McKelvey urged the judge to delay rulings in the dispute indefinitely, claiming only "a handful of employees" have complained about delayed paychecks. He also said the state owes the center $400,000.

Balletta denied these claims.

Mines declined to comment after the court proceeding, but later issued a written statement complaining about media coverage of the center's problems. As in the past, she said the state and local governments have failed to provide the money it needs to function.


Staff Reporter Sandra Tan contributed to this story.

e-mail: mgryta@buffnews.com