Rural Center Board to Review Grants Process | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Rural Center Board to Review Grants Process

    Valeria Lee, chair of the N.C. Rural Economic Development Center board of directors, has announced a plan of action for reviewing the organization's procedures for awarding, monitoring and reporting grants. She sent the following letter to the board today, June 19, 2013.

    Rural Center Board of Directors:

    I thank each of you for your continued commitment to rural North Carolina, your notes of support for the Rural Center, and your recommendations on how best to address recent questions about Rural Center grants. I spoke with the Board's Executive Committee by conference call on Monday afternoon to discuss issues raised in the media reports and our next steps for addressing the concerns of board members and the public. We concluded that the following plan of action, which we believe to be timely, aggressive, and responsive, will accomplish that.

    PLAN: Between now and July 31, the Board will conduct a review of grants for the past five years to determine whether the center deviated from its well-established grant procedures and if so, why.

    •   I will appoint an eight-person committee to oversee the review process.

    •   The committee will be chaired by former N.C. Representative Carolyn Justice. Other members are: Ted Alexander, Shelby; Jim Bryan, Wilmington; Lige Daughtridge, Rocky Mount; CeCe Hipps, Waynesville; Lenna Hobson, Boonville; Alice Keeney, Engelhard; and Curtis Wynn, Ahoskie.

    •   It will be the responsibility of the committee to develop measures for evaluation of the grants and to engage an independent certified public accounting firm to determine compliance of grants with those measures. The committee will produce a report that documents its findings and recommendations.

    •   These findings will be submitted to the Executive Committee and full Board, which will meet in late July to determine next steps and changes that might be considered as we move forward.

    •   All grant files as well as non-funded proposals will be available to the committee.

    The Rural Center has a proud history of investments in the economic and community well-being of rural North Carolina, and we have no reason to suspect wrong-doing. But we take recent allegations seriously and want to make sure we preserve the organization's integrity, strength, and ability so that we may continue to meet critical rural needs.

    This action is in keeping with other recent steps taken by the Executive Committee to ensure organizational integrity. Among these were (1) a 2012 legal review of the center's policies to determine compliance with widely recognized best practices for nonprofit organizations; and (2) the selection by the Board's Audit Committee of a different external auditing firm to assure continued objective assessment of our work.

    I look forward to engaging in a meaningful and constructive discussion with you over the next few weeks. If you have suggestions for specific questions we should address, please forward those to me. We will be checking with you to determine your available dates for a meeting in July.

    Valeria