MOLINE — Four employees of Casa Guanajuato Quad Cities have asked the board of directors to fire executive director Michael Woods.
The employees allege Casa billed the Department of Children and Family Services for services never performed, double billed for others, and lost confidential client files. They also allege that unrealistic workloads, nepotism and an intimidating work environment are attributable to Mr. Woods’ management of the non-profit.
Casa’s board chairman, Jamie Reyes, said the board investigated the employee’s allegations and as a result made changes in billing policies and established new record-keeping guidelines. Some allegations were unfounded, he said, and the employees were told to take up future complaints with their immediate supervisors.
Mr. Woods said the allegations are false and are a personal attack.
Casa, founded in 2001, is a non-profit whose mission is “to contribute to the fullest development of Latino and other immigrant communities across the Quad-Cities Region,” according to its mission statement. It offers adult education classes, health programs, citizenship classes and application assistance, as well as day care and childhood education programs in Moline and Davenport.
The agency has approximately 30 employees and its 2014 budget is $930,000. Almost 39 percent of Casa’s funding comes from state and federal grants and contracts, according to information provided by Mr. Woods.
The employees who complained to the board, Alicia Gomez, a bilingual family therapist; Glendy Aponte, a bilingual family counselor; Laura Huicochea, a family advocate; Rosario Martinez, family advocate; said they contacted Mr. Reyes in mid-November, stated their concerns and asked that Mr. Woods be terminated or allowed to resign.
Ms. Gomez also requested an external audit of Casa’s finances by an independent outside accounting agency. “I firmly believe that DCFS monies have been misappropriated and used within the agency for start-up for other programming based on what I have observed, and I am willing to bring this to the attention of DCFS,” she wrote in her letter to the board.
She said in the letter that Casa submitted 27 billing hours under her name to DCFS for services “I did not deliver and/or perform” in July and August 2013.
In addition, she said Casa billed DCFS for the hours she provided group and individual therapy to former Arrowhead Ranch students, when Arrowhead was already paying Casa for the services.
The employees said six weeks passed without a response to their complaints, and on Dec. 30, 2013, they emailed a collective follow-up letter to Mr. Reyes, requesting immediate action by the board.
On Jan. 15, Mr. Reyes responded in writing to Ms. Gomez and Ms. Huicochea, stating the board investigated the complaints, some were unfounded and others were addressed, the investigation was closed and further concerns should be taken to their immediate supervisors.
Ms. Gomez said she felt the board’s action was insufficient and on Jan. 18, she filed a complaint with the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reporting her concerns about money handling, nepotism and conflict of interest within the agency.
Mr. Woods said he would welcome such an investigation.
As of late Monday, Ms. Gomez had not received any response from the Inspector General’s office. Donald White, a spokesman for the office, said on Thursday there is a huge backlog of requests for investigation and that it might be several weeks before it is processed. The IG’s office does not comment on pending requests, he said.
Billing the state
One of Casa’s funding sources is a fiscal year 2014 contract for $200,000 with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, according to the Illinois Comptroller’s website. Casa submits claims based billable hours for specific services such as individual therapy or family supervision.
Mr. Woods said that when more than five people were in group therapy or in a family supervision situation Casa billed for a second therapist who was present in the building — not the room — in case back-up was needed. He said DCFS allows that practice.
Mr. Reyes, in his letter to Ms. Gomez said the DCFS contract liaison was consulted and “it is now clear” when there are two workers engaged, “we can bill for the time the workers actually assist the clients. The previous practice was believed to be correct….”
Mr. Reyes said he does not believe the organization illegally billed DCFS.
According to the Illinois Comptroller’s website, between July 1, 2013 – Jan. 30, DCFS paid Casa $92,282.
Nepotism
Mr. Woods said there is no nepotism at Casa, though he is married to Jaime Aguilera, who has worked both full time and part time for various periods at Casa during Mr. Woods tenure as executive director.
The employees who have complained to the board said up to five of Mr. Aguilera’s relatives have been employed by the agency at one time or another.
They allege some of the job openings filled by Mr. Aguilera’s relatives were never posted internally or externally, which violated Casa’s policy. They also allege family members don’t have “the credentials and competency to deliver the services they are assuming” and some are also clients and beneficiaries of Casa services.
In the letter to Mr. Reyes, the employees said the coming and going of Mr. Aguilera “is creating a conflict of interest that is detrimental to the confidentiality of the clients being served by CASAQC.”
They also wrote that employees are relocated and terminated to “portray the illusion that the conflict of interest no longer exist….” and were told Mr. Aguilera would be terminated by the end of December, 2013.
Mr. Woods said his husband hasn’t been a paid Casa employee for a year, but continues to volunteer. He added Casa does not have a policy against nepotism and in a community with such a small employment pool, it is common for employees to be related.
Mr. Aguilera could not be contacted for comment on Thursday.
“We make sure everything is fair and balanced. The ones they are complaining about are those who are working the hardest for the agency and community. It is sad they would be attacked for serving the community,” Mr. Woods said.
Mr. Reyes said the board does not have a nepotism policy. “We do have a conflict of interest policy,” he said, adding he would need to review it to see if nepotism would violate the policy.
He said he does not believe nepotism is a problem at Casa. “It is a very small organization. We have roughly 30 employees in the organization. I do not feel it is a concern. The issues that were brought up were reviewed and investigated through our internal process and we had no findings to act on,” Mr. Reyes said.
Missing files
Ms. Huicochea said that when she started working for Casa Sept. 30, 2013, assisting with deferred action and citizenship cases, she found the department handling various legal matters was “extremely disorganized with clients desperately waiting to hear about their cases.” There is no attorney on staff at the moment.
She said Casa had 50 citizenship cases, a majority of which had been inactive for more than six months. There were also 30 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival cases that had been inactive for about one month, she said
Ms. Huicochea said she emailed World Relief to check the progress of 21 citizenship cases that Mr. Aguilera marked as forwarded to the agency. She said World Relief responded it did not have nine of the files. Two were later found, one with World Relief and the other with The Immigration Project in Peoria. She had to re-create seven of the files, she said.
Mr. Woods said. “Not one file was missing,” in response to the employees allegations.
Mr. Reyes, in his written response to Ms. Huicochea, said “…the files have been resolved or nearing resolution. We are advising Casa management to develop standard procedures and/or work instructions regarding the best practice for maintaining files and improving tracking.”
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