Orange County is demanding {that a} nonprofit group linked to a county supervisor’s daughter return hundreds of thousands of {dollars} awarded in county contracts.
The demand, outlined in letters issued to the nonprofit in late July, comes after Viet America Society did not show to auditors and the county the way it spent the cash, or that it had carried out the work it was employed to do: feeding needy seniors in the course of the pandemic.
Within the letters reviewed by the Los Angeles Instances, Orange County instructed the group to return $2.2 million by Aug. 26 after the group missed a June deadline to finish an audit of its work and expenditures. The cash initially got here to the county as federal COVID-19 reduction funds.
An lawyer for the nonprofit, Sterling Scott Winchell, mentioned it wasn’t clear how VAS would reply to the county’s demand for reimbursement.
“It was a shock that they did that,” Winchell mentioned. “This was type of an actual energy play on the a part of the county, and it got here out of nowhere. And I believe it was pointless.”
The county’s transfer got here days after the corporate VAS employed to do the audit, Pun Group, instructed county officers throughout a gathering that the nonprofit “wouldn’t be capable of present ample data to correctly full the audit,” in response to the letters.
Pun Group’s senior auditor instructed the county in the course of the assembly July 23 that VAS “lacked inside controls, didn’t comply with federal uniform tips,” and it didn’t have the required data to assemble an audit path. The senior auditor additionally instructed the county that Pun’s forthcoming audit report was anticipated to stipulate a scarcity of data and “inside management failures.”
However the audit report was not accomplished, and the day after the assembly, VAS terminated its contract with Pun Group.
“VAS’s determination to terminate the Pun Group undermines the County’s in depth efforts to find out VAS’s efficiency below the phrases of the Contract,” reads one of many letters from the county, addressed to VAS Chief Govt Peter Pham and Winchell. “The expenditures are hereby decided to be disallowed and are topic to reimbursement to the County.”
Pham didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The letters demand the group reimburse the county almost $2 million for funds made as a part of a contract for fiscal yr 2021-22, in addition to $200,000 for funds made as a part of a second contract from fiscal yr 2020-21.
The county’s demand that VAS return cash was first reported by LAist. The information group has additionally reported Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do directed or voted to direct as a lot as $13.5 million to the nonprofit with out disclosing that his 22-year-old daughter, Rhiannon Do, was related to the group.
Do’s failure to reveal his daughter’s function within the group shouldn’t be in opposition to the regulation. A invoice that might forbid the observe of native officers voting on contracts that might profit members of the family is presently being thought-about by state legislators.
Rhiannon Do had at one level been listed as an officer on authorities filings for the group, and had reportedly signed a contract that listed her as president.
Rhiannon Do couldn’t be reached for remark. Andrew Do didn’t instantly return requests for remark.
Winchell instructed The Instances in an interview Monday that Do’s daughter had not had a number one function within the group.
“She was simply working there doing meal plans,” he mentioned, however added that the faculty pupil had “signed some paperwork on behalf of the corporate.”
He mentioned she left the group someday earlier than February this yr.
Winchell mentioned VAS is weighing its choices.
“The county doesn’t appear to be inquisitive about speaking to us,” he mentioned.
Winchell confirmed Pun Group’s contract was terminated after the July 23 assembly with the county and VAS officers, however known as it a mutual determination. He mentioned that VAS officers had been involved about how Pun Group described the standing of the audit, and that Pun Group officers had been involved about their means to keep up independence.
In accordance with the letters, county officers had raised issues not nearly data VAS had failed to offer the county but in addition about questionable transactions in paperwork that had been offered. Basic ledgers from Could 2021 to Could 2022, for instance, “included unexplained transactions that increase issues of potential commingling of funds and questionable prices.”
The county additionally alleges efficiency experiences submitted by VAS had been “revised a number of instances and the credibility of the experiences submitted are questionable.”
At one level, the county alleges within the letters, VAS officers reported they had been offering 20,000 meals per thirty days, however later revised the quantity to 10,000 meals a month with out documenting who participated in or dropped out of this system.
In one other occasion, the county alleges that it acquired from VAS an inventory of 900 individuals in this system and checked a pattern of 300 names. Solely 49 folks, or 16% of the pattern, confirmed they had been participating in this system.
The county additionally discovered duplicated individuals and others who couldn’t be confirmed.
“Efficiency requirements, funds abstract, and ship experiences couldn’t be confirmed,” one of many letters reads.
Winchell mentioned there have been issues about how VAS maintained its data however disputed the county’s characterization in its letters.
“The documentation may have been higher,” he mentioned.
He mentioned VAS employed one other native firm after Pun Group was terminated to audit its monetary data, and it plans to share the outcomes of that audit in about two weeks.
He declined to share the identify of the corporate that was employed. He mentioned he didn’t know if VAS had notified the county in regards to the new firm, or if VAS had contacted the county after the letters had been delivered.
When requested how this new firm would be capable of full an audit in 4 weeks that Pun Group couldn’t end in three months, he mentioned he was unfamiliar with how the brand new firm would proceed. He mentioned he was unsure if the brand new firm had the identical issues in regards to the lack of documentation that Pun Group had.
The corporate may proceed the work the place Pun Group left off, or begin anew, he mentioned.
Winchell mentioned VAS officers had been unaware of the “intense accounting” that might be required from their work, and mentioned county officers had “shared blame” for his or her lack of oversight of the work.
“The county sat on its fingers for a number of years and unexpectedly determined their hair is on fireplace,” he mentioned. “If this was so vital, they’d have requested, ‘The place is that this?’ and ‘The place is that this?’”
He mentioned his purchasers weren’t conscious of the federal necessities they had been anticipated to keep up, however conceded the necessities had been outlined within the contract with the county.
“They’re service those who didn’t have counsel, didn’t have accountants and weren’t actually instructed by the county what it could have entailed,” he mentioned.
He additionally dismissed issues about Do’s function directing county cash to a company linked to his daughter, calling her half minor.
VAS will decide on what to do after the audit is accomplished, he mentioned. Regardless of the issues about documentation, he mentioned the group did the work it was paid to do.
“In idea they will pay it again,” Winchell mentioned. “Whether or not they’re going to is one other story.”
