April 12, 2006

Published in Wake Forest, NC

            But the checks were for only one week – Feb. 21-28 – and the recipients did not include students enrolled in the HopeBuilders program who work as interns at local businesses while also attending classes and are paid through a grant from the Wake County Work Force Development Board.

            Heather Crews, a spokesman for the state Department of Labor said Monday, “We do have a wage and hour investigation underway. We have four complaints now, but we will look into it for all employees.”

            Crews said she could not estimate how long the investigation would last. “It depends on how cooperative the parties are and how complex the allegations are.” If the department finds the employees were not properly paid, it could require payment of all back wages plus interest and could assess fines.

            Jones said Monday that 10 employees now at the DuBois Center and including himself were paid last week. “The county provides most of this money.”

            The former employees are finding it very difficult because they have not received pay – or only a portion of it – for their work in February. People cannot pay their rent or their mortgage, Cathee Miller, a staff member at the new W.E.B. DuBois Community Development Center with an office on South White Street, said Tuesday. Phaedra Taylor of Raleigh, a case manager who was expecting about $2,500, said she had turned to substitute teaching at a Raleigh charter school to make ends meet.

            The situation is especially dire for young adults in the HopeBuilders program. Miller said one young mother could not afford diapers for her baby.

            Tempers flared on Friday when Jones first announced he would pay people but then had to say no checks had arrived. “Words were slung,” one person said. A staff member said Lawrence (also called Eugene) Perry, the president of the National DuBois Alumni Association, was present and appeared to be daring people to take a swing at him. Friday was the second or third time Jones had promised paychecks but did not deliver.

            More checks were apparently to arrive late Wednesday for some more employees, but again would only be for a week’s work.

            “Some may never be paid,” Jones said.   

            While giving out some checks Tuesday, Jones made several comments to the young women disappointed in receiving only a week’s pay. “She [their supervisor] has already given you a check,” he said once, then “This gets into a legal issue.”

            Jones’ reference to a legal issue apparently stems from the monthly reimbursement the Wake County Department of Human Services pays for the mental health counseling services where most of the affected people work on a full-time or part-time basis.

            They had worked for the DuBois Center until the end of February when they left in a body to work for the DuBois CDC set up by the Center’s former director, Bettie Murchison. The system is that the counseling staff, who are contract employees, turn in their hours at the end of the month and are paid at the end of the following month.

            A member of the DuBois CDC board, Marshall Harvey, transferred $169,399.38 to a CDC account late in February. The money, Murchison said this week, was used to pay the Center’s staff for their work in January.

            Murchison said the money was transferred because she feared Jones and Perry would not use that money for the payroll. “My first duty is to our clients and the staff,” she said.   

            The county has paid the DuBois Center $142,777 for the staff’s work during February, and again Murchison and her staff are concerned that the money is not going for the purposes it was intended.

            Perry has advanced $5,000 to a Smithfield attorney, Kenneth Hinton, and $7,500 to a Smithfield CPA, Lee Jackson.

            Murchison and others met with Hinton and Jackson just before the checks for February were to be cut and was assured then that they had all the information necessary. Jackson wanted to wait to pay the employees until an audit was complete, she said, but she told him they needed to be paid. She was also taken aback by Jackson’s attitude. “He was so hateful to us. I was just stunned at his anger toward us.”

            In his March 20 letter to Hinton, Perry said the retainer was for his work in the alumni association’s legal action against Murchison. Along with the allegation about the $169,399.38, Perry said Murchison had violated the association’s constitution and by-laws by writing checks with only her signature and also listed several items he said were removed from the center the last week in February.

            It was a chaotic scene on Friday, Feb.24, because Perry was changing the locks on the buildings and denying further access, even though Murchison’s and the staff’s resignations were not effective until Feb. 28. Perry was present and watching while staff packed up and moved.

            The computers Perry listed as missing in his letter did not belong to the center. They were on loan from White Street Computers owned by Beverly and Don Rich, who sent an e-mail to the Gazette describing their consternation as Perry and Jones kicked people out of the food pantry distribution on Thursday and tried to stop the Riches from retrieving their equipment.

            Another complaint was about employee files. “We turned over the employee files as soon as they were requested,” Murchison said. In February those files were at the small office in Massey Apartments because the counseling program was undergoing a regular audit by the county mental health department and auditors had to be able to see the files for all the team members for each client. She and her staff are concerned the confidentiality of the files may have been compromised since they were returned to the DuBois Center because Jones has discussed information about one person’s file with another person.

            A number of items were taken in error because of the haste and have been returned, including freezers and refrigerators for the food pantry.

            Some listed items belong to the staff or were loaned to the center, and questions about the vans have been resolved.

            Murchison said her desire was to settle the issues through mediation or some other avenue. “All this could be settled by reasonable people sitting around a table.”

            Murchison and staff members say the only large source of money for the DuBois Center has been the funds for the mental health counseling program, and Wake County is now paying the DuBois CDC for that.

            Murchison said she surmises Perry and others on the alumni board saw the total budget for the center, $1.5 million last year, and did not realize it was “money in, money out,” going to pay for salaries and transportation as specified in grants and contracts.

            The alumni association does receive rent from the county school system for the modular school on the 17-acre campus of $36,000 a year, but $26,000 is withheld to pay the mortgage for the land and buildings.

            Jones said Tuesday he was working on four grant proposals to make up for the money, including a junior justice program and something similar to the counseling program the DuBois CDC operates.

            Jones said Tuesday he plans to reopen the food pantry next week with four or five volunteers. Murchison is also planning a food pantry as soon as she finds suitable space.

            Jones also said the Banks Kerr Family YMCA, which runs the after-school tutoring program at the DuBois Center, plans to again operate the free summer camp, Camp High Hopes, with 100 children this year. Last year 75 children were served. Children are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis, and the registration at the center will be on May 10 and 17.

            Jones, a Raleigh resident, said he met Perry when he attended some of the DuBois Jazz Festivals.

            Jones was first the vice president and then the president and CEO of Diverse Home Health Services, which was organized to provide personal care services, nursing, aides and physical therapy for Medicaid recipients. The business operated from the mid-1990s until about two years ago. It was most recently housed at the Raleigh Business & Technology Center on Wilmington Street. Robert L. Robinson, the center’s executive director, sent a message that he did not want to comment on Jones or his business.

            Jones said he is a member of a Wake County blue ribbon committee to plan the future uses of the Dorothea Dix campus, and he is on the board of directors of the Executive Service Corps of the Greater Triangle, where he is listed as the president and CEO for Diverse Home Health Services. ESC provides counseling for nonprofit groups.

            Murchison, who was told last fall after Perry became president of the alumni organization that she could not apply for grants or enter contracts without prior board approval, said there was another compelling reason for her to resign and incorporate the DuBois CDC.

            The state has changed the way service is delivered for mental health clients, she said. “It’s more teamwork, more person-centered.” The change required a new and lengthy re-certification process with new standards for the counselors, case managers and other staff with a deadline of March 20.

            Jerry Wright, the DuBois Center’s deputy director, gave Perry and the board all of the information about the change and the actions needed at their January meeting, Murchison said, and Perry put it aside. “They chose not to act on it.”

            If the staff did not go through the re-certification process, Murchison said, there would have been a lapse in services to the 200-some clients.

            “The center would have been liable for discontinuing services to the clients.” Those clients have serious issues, Murchison said, including suicidal impulses and child sex abuse. “You don’t just turn your back on people and walk away.”

            To keep providing those services, Murchison and others incorporated the DuBois CDC early in January, and she and the mental health counseling staff worked nights and weekends to go through all the necessary steps and paperwork to make sure they were certified under the new standards.