Commentary: Northern Kentucky seniors deserve explanation for SSNK’s abrupt cessation of services

By Mark Hansel
NKyTribune managing editor

The Senior Services of Northern Kentucky board of directors should call for an independent forensic audit of the organization’s finances following its abrupt shutdown last week.

The sudden closing was bad enough. The continued lack of transparency or explanation or forthrightness with the public has added insult to injury.

The demise of an organization that has served the region’s senior population for 50 years requires more than a deafening silence. Expenditures of tax dollars, the use of funds from foundations, the United Way, and private donors come with the obligations of trust and responsibility.

At a hastily called meeting with public officials, Executive Director Jay Van Winkle said only that when the SSNK received its year-end statement June 30, there was a large financial hole that the organization could not fill.

“The board found out, when they got the year-end statement on June 30, that the hole was much larger than it had ever been,” Van Winkle said. “Why that happened we’re unsure, but it was a bigger hole than they could possibly ever find the money to fill the gap.”

“We’re unsure” about an insurmountable “big hole” is not a satisfactory explanation — for funders or for the organization’s senior clients.

Were it not for the quick and decisive action of the region’s elected officials and the Northern Kentucky Area Development District, those seniors would have been left without essential services, with very little notice.

Among the services provided by SSNK were Meals on Wheels, the operation of 10 senior centers, ombudsman services and transportation to medical appointments.

The Northern Kentucky Tribune filed an open records request asking for detailed financial records and the annual reports for Senior Services of Northern Kentucky for the last three fiscal years. A response from Patrick Hughes, an attorney with Dressman Benzinger LaVelle, which represents SSNK, stated the organization is not required to comply with the Kentucky Open Records Act requests.

The statute identifies a public agency as:

Any body which, within any fiscal year, derives at least twenty-five percent (25%) of its funds expended by it in the Commonwealth of Kentucky from state or local authority funds. However, any funds derived from a state or local authority in compensation for goods or services that are provided by a contract obtained through a public competitive procurement process shall not be included in the determination of whether a body is a public agency under this subsection.

SSNK certainly did receive more than the required public funds, how much of it from a bidding process we don’t know without seeing the records.

“SSNK does receive some portion of its funding from local funds, but SSNK obtains such contracts through a public competitive procurement process. Thus SSNK is under no obligation to comply with your requests,” said Hughes.

SSNK did provide IRS 990 Forms for fiscal years 2013 and 2014, as well as program audits for those years.

The documents did not, however, explain the “big hole” of 2015.” Most of the information provided, the NKyTribune already had through other sources.

The reason given is that SSNK is not a public agency as defined by KRS 61.870.

The Northern Kentucky Tribune will seek an opinion from the Kentucky Attorney General’s office to determine whether SSNK is, in fact, exempt from the open records requirement.

All this should not be necessary. Suspicions around this kind of stonewalling are guaranteed to be worse than the reality and certainly do not reflect well on the leadership of the organization, including its community board members.

Creating an additional environment for suspicion, the SSNK web site was wiped clean of links to its annual reports and of the names of its board of directors and staff.

The announcement to cease operations came as a shock to elected officials and stakeholders, who pointed out that many SSNK contracts with local agencies required at least a 30-day notice to suspend services. No one received such notice, though SSNK retained a consultant and knew about the “big hole” in June.

Florence Mayor Diane Whalen is among those who have called for a forensic audit and has offered the services of Linda Chapman, the city’s finance director, to perform the review. Chapman, a respected forensic accountant, assisted State Auditor Adam Edelen in the investigation of financial irregularities in the City of Covington in 2013, resulting in imprisonment for Robert Due, the city’s finance director. Chapman has also assisted in investigations with companies in the private sector.

Since SSNK has offered no specifics for the financial decline, it has an obligation to open its books and allow an independent auditor to understand what it apparently cannot.