By Greg Grisolano
ggrisolano@joplinglobe.com
The sale of an office building that once was home to the local Area Agency on Aging could put $150,000 back in the AAA’s coffers, which is where state officials say the money belongs.
At issue is at least $150,000 that was given to Four County Elder Advocates, an organization created to raise funds for the AAA, to finance the completion of an office building at 2701 S. Bird Ave.
The property on Bird Avenue was leased to the Area Agency from 2004 until last spring, when a state audit recommended the agency attempt to seek ownership of the building or move into a new location. The agency is now operating out of a building at 15th and Missouri in Joplin. The old headquarters has been on the market since this summer.
“There is a contract for sale on the building, but it’s very preliminary at this point,” Dwane Russell, executive director for Four County Elder Advocates, said on Tuesday. “There’s a considerable amount of interior finish that needs to be done. We’ve given the buyer a defined period of time in which to do his due diligence.”
Chuck Brown, the attorney for the agency, confirmed that negotiations were under way to receive some form of repayment from Four County, pending the eventual sale of the building, but declined to elaborate.
Rank and file reaction
News that the building may be sold and at least a portion of the funds used to reimburse the agency met with support from Carl Brandon, a member of the Webb City Senior Center advisory board, who has been a longtime critic of the arrangement.
“That sounds like a good deal to me,” he said. “It should have been done a long time ago.”
The Webb City board members were the first to raise questions about the audit and Richard Russell’s role as leader of both the agency and Four County.
“It’s something that got started because they cut programs that were supposed to be helping people, because they said they didn’t have the money,” Brandon said. “But our feeling was the money was in a different account.”
The audit also recommended that the agency “take all actions reasonable and necessary” to recover at least $150,000 — an investment of state and federal funds from the agency’s budget — to help pay for the costs of completing the Bird Avenue property.
Board reaction
Agency board member John Bartosh, presiding commissioner of Jasper County, said if the agency is able to recoup the money, it should be invested to provide long-term dividends to support senior programs.
“Maybe we’ll be lucky enough to put that in a money-market (account) so we can get a little income every year,” he said.
Concerns were first raised in March 2007, when state-contracted auditors called into question $142,500 in state and federal funds that were earmarked for nutrition programs for seniors. Auditors asserted that the funds were “diverted to a less-than-arms-length nonprofit organization,” Four County, with ties to the Area Agency’s then-director, Richard Russell, who is Dwane Russell’s father. Those funds ultimately were paid back to the Area Agency.
Four County Elder Advocates was created in 1990 to serve as the fundraising arm of the Area Agency on Aging. At the time the Bird Avenue building was constructed, Richard Russell was serving as director of Area Agency and as president of Four County. After criticism in an earlier audit prompted him to resign from the Four County post, his son, Dwane Russell, was named president of the latter organization.
Russell reiterated a previous statement that his nonprofit organization plans to distribute the proceeds of the sale to other nonprofits in the area, including the Area Agency on Aging.
“As I’ve stated all along, Four County’s position has been that when and if we close, we’d make donations of any assets remaining, and Four County would go quietly into the night I guess,” he said. “We just don’t see that there’s a need for us to exist after that’s occurred.”
Relationship changed
Jerry Carter, Newton County presiding commissioner and executive director of the agency board, said the relationship with Four County changed over time to the point where “it couldn’t continue.”
“Unfortunately the fundraising couldn’t continue,” he said. “But it clearly couldn’t (based on the audit findings).”
Richard Russell stepped down as executive director of Four County Elder Advocates in January of 2007, amid concerns from the state audit that his dual roles represented a conflict of interest.
With pressure mounting regarding the $142,500 issue later, Richard Russell announced his departure from the directorship of the AAA in October 2007, shortly before the board of directors was to take up his fate. That followed publication of the state’s latest audit that cited the issue of the $142,500.
State’s take
Patty Wilbers, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, said the state has been in regular communication with the agency board, but had no comment at this time. “It’s pretty much public knowledge that the building is for sale, and we’ve been in contact with the board about their plans for restitution,” she said. “There really isn’t much more we can say at this point.”
