Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains largely funded by government contracts

10/29/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Since we are closely following the controversy in Wyoming (see our previous post), let’s have a look at who exactly has expressed an interest in being the federal government contractor wishing to do business and resettle clients in Wyoming—Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains (LFSRM) sometimes known as Lutheran Family Services Colorado. (Why they need to operate under two names is beyond me!).

Rocky Mountain ‘Lutheran’ CEO Barclay makes just short of $200,000 in salary and benefits.

Let’s not tip our hand prematurely!

We first became aware of their role when it was learned that officials there were unhappy to be prematurely mentioned in publicity surrounding Wyoming Governor Mead’s proposed plan. They wanted the plans for Wyoming to be kept secret from the general public until they were further along.

“The largest refugee resettlement agency in the Rocky Mountain region.” they have “offices located in Denver, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Greeley/Evans and Fort Morgan, CO and Albuquerque, NM, and services provided in Wyoming, Montana and Western Nebraska.”

Although they do other work for children and families, they had time to resettle a whopping 1,567 refugees in FY12-13. Learn more here.

LFSRM is a subcontractor of the much larger Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) headquartered in Baltimore, MD. Just the other day we noted that LIRS has taken down its reference to an office in Casper, WY:

Note that in this post we wrote in July, LIRS linked a Casper, Wyoming office (Gillette and Casper are two cities mentioned as possible resettlement sites). However, if you go to LIRS website today the link has been erased. Have they given up? Or, are they just laying low until the political storm blows over?

Could they possibly have already been bringing in those Somalis we wrote about here?

Funded almost entirely with taxpayer dollars!

Lutheran Family Services RM is not a privately-funded church group, it is a quasi-government agency which is 84% funded by tax dollars.

Let’s visit their most recently available Form 990 here.

Their gross revenue was $12,915,054

$10,812,318 comes from government contracts.

Although they don’t list grants they do list government contracts on page 9 (they took the word “government” out in this Form 990, but I checked previous ones to be sure in which they did categorize the majority of their income as from “government contracts.”). LOL! I think these so-called ‘non-profits’ are increasingly sensitive and don’t want you to know how much they depend on tax dollars. This is a business not a charity!

When you visit that previous Form 990, check out the big jump Barclay’s salary took in just two years from 2010-2012!

CEO James Barclay makes a cool $199,330 in salary and benefits and 4 other top executives are in the 6-figure category including James Horan who runs their refugee branch. (page 8). Barclay made $172,267 two years earlier.

Then here are some of their expenses (rounded numbers). Without your cash they could not exist!

Nearly $5 million in salary, benefits and employment expenses were paid out.

Occupancy and other office expenses approached $900,000.

$259,000 went for travel expenses (what for just the Rocky Mountain region?).

$55,000 was spent for conferences.

And, they even spent $32,000 lobbying (for what? more money from government?).

New York Lutheran church may house alien children because the church is broke

08/18/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update August 20th: What do you know, change of plans, “children” not going there after all. Hat tip: Robin

A “financially troubled” Lutheran Church on Long Island riled the community of Commack recently when it said it was considering housing some of the ‘unaccompanied alien children’ flooding the US border in recent months.

A NYC fire fighter who lives next door said: “It’s basically going to be a hotel right next to my house.”

Lutheran church in Commack, NY could become a “hotel” for the unaccompanied alien children. http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2014/aug/16/plan-send-immigrant-kids-ny-church/

Who put them up to it—-Lutheran Social Services of New York *** which says it has the bucks to pay (an affiliate of the big kahuna Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service).

From Newsday (hat tip: Caroline):

A Lutheran church in Commack may host some of the tens of thousands of immigrant children illegally crossing the United States’ border with Mexico mainly to reunite with family here, the church’s pastor said Tuesday.

The financially troubled Holy Cross Lutheran Church had to cancel a meeting last week after outraged neighbors packed the church to protest the proposal, but Rev. Dennis Walker said the congregation is still considering it and hopes to meet in coming weeks to decide.

Walker said community opposition was being fueled by misinformation about the proposal, and he hopes “people will reconsider in a more rational light. This is minimal impact on the community with substantial benefits” such as jobs for workers who would remodel the building to create the living quarters. [Here is one of my questions, if the “children’s” border surge ended tomorrow and the church had already been remodeled, then what? Would it house other migrants of some sort?—ed]

The proposal calls for about 40 children, 4 to 17, to be housed at the church at any one time between seven and 30 days, Walker said. The children would be in transit from federal immigration detention facilities to relatives in the New York area, and would leave only for medical appointments or other important issues, Walker said.

So who does have moola (federal cash!)?

The proposal was brought to the church by Lutheran Social Services of New York, the Manhattan-based agency that would cover cost for the renovation, using federal funds.

Nearby residents firmly oppose the idea. “It’s scary,” said Sheryl Cambria, 35, a special-education teacher at Lindenhurst High School. “I have two little kids. Who’s to say my house is going to be safe?” New York City firefighter Michael Cantwell, 44, said, “It’s basically going to be a hotel right next to my house.”

Not just in Commack, New York, but from sea to shining sea, this is what it is all about, the good pastor admits—

—they get money (your tax dollars) and get to “do the Christian thing!” Who can beat that!

Walker said the Commack church is in dire financial straits after a day care business stopped renting space in June.

The immigrant children program could bring in $8,000 to $10,000 a month, help pay off a $25,000 debt — and allow the church to do the Christian thing, he said.

***According to Guidestar, Lutheran Social Services of New York does not file a Form 990 tax return with the IRS because it says it’s exempt as a “church.” I’ve seen that occasionally over the years (of course, it’s a way of hiding their financials from the public) and wonder that the ACLU isn’t interested in examining this situation—federal money flowing directly to a church (and not a “religious” IRS-approved non-profit group). Hmmm!

Any forensic accountants following the money trail?

Endnote: The AP has a longer story posted on this past Saturday, here. Note that the AP reporter tried to talk with someone at Lutheran Social Services of New York (offices on Riverside Dr at the “God Box” where God is a Leftwinger) and they refused to comment.

For more on ‘unaccompanied minors’ here at RRW, click here.

Wall Street Journal parrots migrant contractors’ wail for more tax dollars

08/16/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Geez, you would think that the big media like the Wall Street Journal (Miriam Jordan) might actually do a little more work than to simply join the orchestrated PR chorus (lobbying campaign!) of the likes of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) wailing for more taxpayer funding so they don’t have to reduce staff or heaven-forbid close offices and stop traveling or going to meetings in the wake of the “children’s” border surge.

In fact, as a regular reader here, you know both of those “refugee” (referred to now as “migrant”) contractors (the biggest crybabies) are getting money from two of the US Health and Human Services (Office of Refugee Resettlement) pockets—the one for ‘unaccompanied alien children’ and for the usual refugee flow of third-worlders into America.

Here is the Wall Street Journal’s ho-hum story (virtually the same one we are seeing from publications large and small). Emphasis is mine:

The influx of Central American children across the southern U.S. border in recent months is having an impact on another immigrant community: refugees from Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Government funds that would ordinarily go to resettlement programs for refugees have been diverted to help pay for the costs of coping with the recent wave of unaccompanied minors, and it isn’t clear if the money will be entirely restored.

Then get this fear-mongering!

Now retired President and CEO of Lutheran Community Services Northwest, Roberta Nestaas, was making over $200,000 in salary and benefits at the time of her retirement earlier this summer.

“Unfortunately, you are taking from one vulnerable population to provide to another vulnerable population,” said Jacinda Paschoal, regional operations manager for Lutheran Community Services Northwest, which resettles refugees in Oregon and Washington.

She said that tuberculosis testing, follow-up and treatment as well as services for school-aged children and elderly refugees are among those impacted by cuts. More than a dozen staff positions are slated to be eliminated in Portland, she said, because of the reallocation of resources.

I’m betting most readers are now saying—WTH!—we are bringing refugees with tuberculosis into the US and paying for their treatment? YES! Old people who need care too? YES!

And, then this is the blood-boiling part of the story (if that wasn’t enough). The article suggests that these contractors use their own “self-generated funding” to pay for their good works.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and other organizations that serve refugees have taken their concerns to congressional representatives. Among others, the organizations, using federal and self-generated funding, help refugees find housing and work as well as enroll in English classes and get vaccinated. [The reporter could very easily have put a qualifier in this sentence that told readers that MOST of the money they spend is federal money—ed]

How much is federal and how much is private CHARITABLE money? Truth please!

The USCCB is 98% supported by tax dollars and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is 97% supported by public money. Another galling thing we never hear about is that these federal contractors were lobbying for the Senate’s Gang of Eight amnesty bill! On our dime?

Since Jordan quotes from the whiners at Lutheran Community Services Northwest, let’s just have a look at their finances!

Here is their Form 990 for 2013 (year ending June 30th, 2013):

They received income that year of $21,604,804 and $19,557,224 came directly from US taxpayers as government grants. There are other categories of income that are also possibly streams from public money as well. But, assuming just the government grants, that means they are 86% funded by you!

Their CEO, Roberta Nestaas, retired on June 30th of this year and was pulling down a salary and benefits package worth $221,935. Presumably new CEO David Duea will do just as well (by doing good).

Their expenses include $13.7 million in wages and another nearly $2 million in “employee benefits.” Their current officers and directors compensation was $371,575.

Office expenses and occupancy were over $2.3 million.

Travel: $389,574

Meetings and conferences: $219,353

They even have an expense called “Volunteer expenses” which came to $176,510 in that one year.

So now why do you think there is all this wailing going on from quasi-government/quasi-religious supposed non-profits who want more of your money?

Come on! How about some real investigative reporting for a change!

All of our coverage of ‘unaccompanied minors’ is here (the archive goes back several years). Were the US Bishops partially responsible for the surge? We think so!

Time magazine reports on federal migrant resettlement contractors

08/12/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is a new day in America! A major media outlet has dared mention the fact that quasi-government/quasi-religious agencies are reaping millions in government grants to care for “refugees” and the illegal alien children surging across our southern border.

[Editor: I realize that I can’t really refer to the contractors*** as refugee resettlement contractors anymore since they now resettle illegal aliens as well! I guess we will call them migrant resettlement contractors.]

And, by the way readers, resettlement (hooking them up with social services and health care, filing their citizenship paperwork etc.) is the job the contractors would have legally been paid to do for all migrants (the newly amnestied) through S.744 (the Gang of Eight amnesty bill) if it had made it to the President’s desk. The contractors listed below all lobbied for S.744!

As regular readers of RRW, you know most of this about grant recipient big dogs—Baptist Child and Family Services and Southwest Key—as well as the smaller federal contractors (by comparison!) the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, but the average America getting news from the dinosaur media does not! Until now!

Here is Time (emphasis mine) in a story from last week entitled: This Baptist Charity Is Being Paid Hundreds of Millions to Shelter Child Migrants.

Iowa Senator Charles Grassley wants to be sure taxpayer money is not being misused. Go for it Senator!

In the late afternoon of July 9, Air Force One touched down at Love Field in Dallas. President Barack Obama ducked into a private room at the airport for a discussion about the crisis of undocumented children crossing the southwest border. Assembled around a wooden table were top Texas officials, including Governor Rick Perry and Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, as well as the leaders of several faith-based charities. One of them was a man so anonymous, the White House pool report misspelled his name.

Kevin Dinnin is the CEO of a faith-based, nonprofit organization called BCFS, formerly known as Baptist Child and Family Services. This obscure charity has emerged as one of the biggest players in the federal government’s response to the influx of more than 57,000 unaccompanied children who have trudged across the southern border so far this year. It runs two of the largest facilities for temporarily housing immigrant children, as well as six permanent shelters in California and Texas. Since December, BCFS has received more than $280 million in federal grants to operate these shelters, according to government records. On July 7, two days before Dinnin met Obama in Dallas, the Department of Health and Human Services awarded BCFS $190,707,505 in a single grant.

Senator Grassley wants answers!

Senator Charles Grassley, the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell on July 17, requesting information about BCFS contracts to ensure that taxpayer money wasn’t being misused. “Despite being almost completely dependent on the public, BCFS has faced heavy criticism for attempting to avoid public scrutiny,” the Iowa Republican wrote. “This aversion to basic transparency is extremely disturbing.”

[….]

For BCFS executives, the work can be lucrative. According to federal tax records, Dinnin received nearly $450,000 in compensation in 2012. At least four other top officials earned more than $200,000. The median salary for the CEOs of nonprofit organizations like BCFS was about $285,000 in 2011, according to a 2013 survey by Charity Navigator.

Our old standbys, the Lutherans and Catholics get a mention:

The federal grant money for sheltering unaccompanied children, provided by HHS’s Administration for Children and Families, has so far totaled $671 million during the 2014 fiscal year. BCFS has received 40% of those funds, making it the largest recipient of money disbursed to contractors to temporarily house unaccompanied children until they can be reunited with family members or placed in foster care. Dozens of other organizations are involved in the effort, including Southwest Key Programs, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

And then get this! They say that the reason for the secrecy is that they fear—you (“clusters” of armed citizens they say!) protesting. What they really fear is that protests will wake up the American people and more will figure out how they are being scammed out of their tax dollars not to mention that they will come to understand the level to which we are being invaded by the third world!

The level of secrecy surrounding the facilities is unusual, says Neil Gordon, an investigator for the Washington-based Project on Government Oversight. But observers say it may be warranted. From Arizona to Michigan, clusters of citizens have held armed protests to oppose the relocation of undocumented children to facilities in their communities. “This situation is pretty unique in that they don’t want the mobs to come out and cause problems,” Gordon says. “That might be the reason they’re being so tight-lipped.”

Doesn’t that just tick you off! “Observers say” (who the hell are the observers!). Heck, I should start using that phrase! I’ve got all sorts of “observers” with a lot to say!

There is much more, read it all and rejoice that the word is now reaching living rooms nationwide!

***The federal refugee resettlement contractors (I suspect grant recipient big dogs Baptist Child and Family Services and Southwest Key Programs are now devouring all the federal cash):

Our complete archive on ‘unaccompanied minors’ goes back several years, click here for all of those posts.

Baltimore: Lutheran contractor prays in ritzy neighborhood to demonstrate how Maryland welcomes the illegal children

07/31/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yeah sure…

Linda Hartke, CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, led a prayer vigil for the “chiiildruunn” in their own swanky back yard—-the Inner Harbor of Baltimore—yesterday. The multi-million dollar federal refugee contractor has its headquarters there.

Gee, why weren’t the “faith leaders” parading and praying through Baltimore’s seedy side?

Gotta keep up their real estate holdings! The Lutheran Center (LIRS headquarters) is a six-story structure constructed in 1999 on property owned by Baltimore’s historic Christ Lutheran Church. The building is located near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in the historic Federal Hill neighborhood, a charming area rich with history and an eclectic array of eateries and shopping venues.

And, of course, the lazy Associated Press (and other major media) never mention a word that Hartke and crew are being paid from the US Treasury to do their community organizing.

Sorry to our long-time readers who have heard my rant for the umpteenth time.

See Lutherans again with Christian charity claptrap!

We are paying for their public relations campaign! 97% of their funding comes from taxpayers while they pretend that what they do is out of the goodness of their Christian hearts!

Hartke is paid over $200,000 a year to do her prayer vigil march!

Here is their latest phony-baloney public relations ploy. They only had to walk a short distance from their office building (that you help pay for too!).

This is the AP story that we saw in the San Francisco Chronicle (emphasis is mine):

BALTIMORE (AP) — Scores of Baltimore-area religious leaders held an interfaith prayer vigil for unaccompanied children who arrived in Maryland after fleeing violence in their home countries.

Dozens of religious leaders and supporters marched along Baltimore’s Inner Harbor on Wednesday to draw attention to the influx of immigrant children into the United States, and specifically into Maryland and Baltimore. In the first seven months of 2014, 2,205 unaccompanied immigrant children have settled in Maryland. Most of those children have been reunited with family members or placed in the homes of sponsors.

[….]

Linda Hartke, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and one of the rally’s organizers, said the march and prayer vigil were designed to send a message that the city is welcoming of refugees and immigrants.

So why weren’t they marching in West Baltimore—that would be a real test of how “welcoming” the city might be! Why aren’t these people worthy of the Lutherans’ prayers? They have dreams and aspirations too!

“Today’s gathering is an important sign of support from the people of Baltimore that says this is a city and a state that’s welcoming of refugee kids, of people who flee violence, of people who have dreams and aspirations for their future, for their well-being, and to be reunited with their family members.”

The Lutherans are praying as well for Marylanders to take the “children” into their homes.

Now this next part is such a joke (if this weren’t so serious an issue).

Governor wannabe-President Martin O’Malley met with “faith leaders” on Monday to plan for the children.

I would bet a buck that every “faith leader” in the meeting was on salary to be there and had a financial interest, as a federal contractor, in the ‘unaccompanied alien children’ coming to the state. But, surely no reporter even thought to inquire.

The prayer vigil comes just two days after Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley met with religious leaders in the state’s capital to discuss strategies for sheltering the children in Maryland. Catholic Charities [also a federal contractor—ed] has proposed utilizing one of its Timonium facilities that has been used to house children with severe behavioral problems as a shelter for immigrant children. The facility can house 50 children at a time.

All of our coverage of the ‘unaccompanied minors’ border invasion may be found by clicking here.

Do you have a Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) subcontractor near you? Go here to find out. Note that business is booming under Obama and LIRS is in the process of hiring a second Washington lobbyist, here.

And, as 2016 approaches, just know that Martin O’Malley has done everything he could as governor of Maryland to help the anti-borders activists “welcome” more immigrants of all stripes (legal and illegal) into Maryland. I guess Maryland’s own poor minority people aren’t cool enough for O’Malley and the “faith leaders.”