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Cynthia Finch, Requitta Bone back in the news
Posted By katie allison granju
Kay Watson takes a closer look at ties between Finch and several organizations receiving tax dollars:
Cynthia Finch is the Mayor’s Director of Community Services. Her office monitors county, state, and federal grant money distributed to dozens of organizations, including one run by her sister, Jacqueline Collins.
Tax documents recently filed by Collins for TennCorp Community Services show Finch’s former assistant Requitta Bone is listed as an unpaid member of Tenn Corp’s Board of Directors for 2006.
Bone worked for Knox County under Finch, but resigned earlier this year. She’d charged plane tickets and meals for her family on her county credit card.
10 News is also learning more about another group getting grant money through Finch’s office, Family Security, Inc.
The federal government’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) now says there was a conflict of interest surrounding federal money awarded to that organization because of a Finch connection.
Family Security, Inc. was paying rent for office space at 2723 Magnolia Avenue until three or four months ago.
According to the building’s owner, the group left because it ran out of grant money.
In paperwork filed with the state, Family Security, Inc. noted its purpose was to “provide programs and services to help strengthen families and individuals in mind, body, and spirit.”
Barbara Canada, who earned her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee, founded the group and was its executive director. Records show Canada’s daughter, Barbara Maultsby, took over leadership in 2006. Maultsby lives in Nashville.
Canada was still on the Board of Directors in 2006, according to state records. That year, she went to work for the Knox County Health Department, where she now makes $38,113 each year. That amount is comparable to other health educators.
At that time, the department was under the supervision of Community Services and Cynthia Finch. Mayor Mike Ragsdale has since moved the department under the control of another senior staff member, Chief of Staff Mike Arms.
Health Department Director Mark Jones said Finch called him to recommend hiring Canada. However, he said he always hires the “best person” for a job, and he hired Canada because she was more than qualified.
More at WBIR.com.
Also this week, an op-ed in the News Sentinel from Greg Johnson that summarizes the Finch affair and calls for her resignation:
An audit by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found Knox County’s Department of Community Services, where Finch is director, in disarray. Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale had asked HUD to audit Finch’s department after reports of discrepancies in the county’s community grants program arose earlier this year.
HUD found that $840,000 of grants awarded from the county’s Community Development Block Grant program went to agencies with ties to Finch or people who work in her office. HUD found a direct conflict of interest on $40,000 awarded to Family-Security Inc., which then paid $33,454.04, some of which went to TennCorp Community Volunteers Inc., an entity headed by Finch’s sister.
Another $100,000 went to Parkridge Harbor, where Finch sits on the board, and $350,000 was awarded to Tennessee Conference of the AME Zion Church Community Development (TCCD), an organization in which Finch’s church is a member.
HUD disallowed the grant to Family-Security Inc. and “questioned” another $800,000 in grants. More than half of the questionable monies from the block grants were awarded to organizations with ties to Finch. But the conflict-of-interest issues are just part of the problems.
HUD found that Knox County “has failed in the last two years to make any significant progress in carrying out activities under the HOME Program” and that the county rehabilitation program “has completed very few housing units over the last two program years.”
HUD also found that, since the practices of Finch’s office had resulted in “little or no housing being rehabilitated,” the administrative funding for the HOME Program could be questioned. Knox County received more than $850,000 in HOME Program grants over the past two years.
HUD said that Knox County Community Development and the county Public Building Authority failed to complete documentation to support administrative costs charged to the Community Development Block Grant and HOME programs.
While some grant sub-recipients performed as expected, the HUD audit found gross management failure, particularly when it came to Family-Security Inc.
As previously reported, the organization headed by Finch’s sister ran, as one worker called it, a “glorified babysitting service.” A compliance visit found, in essence, that federal tax dollars were going to pay workers to sit with their own children in otherwise empty facilities. The county never formally notified Family-Security Inc. in writing of its noncompliance, making phone calls instead. No other agency received such lackadaisical oversight.
Dec 29th, 2007
She should resign shamefully.
I think anybody in office right now should resign.We should start all over and see how many more citizens of Knoxville we can make into crooks!!!!
And by the way , you go Greg “Lumpy” Lambert, they finally have someone up there that has the balls to stand up and call them out