West York unveils new solution to the problem of unwanted public records: A shredder

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Scott Blanchard

Check out these stories about what West York did with bids for police service after it made its decision. Seems like the logical thing to do would have been to … keep the records to make sure they were available to the public.


West York Borough Council open records/meetings issues

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View “West York Borough Council open records/meetings issues” on Spundge

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Angel Food Ministries leaders plead guilty to federal charges

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Scott Blanchard

Joe and Linda Wingo, the husband-and-wife founders of the food nonprofit Angel Food Ministries, and their son Andy have pleaded guilty to federal charges, according to court records (scroll down for documents).

In December 2011, a Georgia grand jury indicted the three (and an employee of AFM) on fraud and other charges related to their operation of AFM. The nonprofit bought food, packaged it in boxes and sold it at a discount through distribution sites — including several in York County at one point — thus helping families stretch their budgets in tough economic times.

But a York Daily Record/Sunday News investigation, reported by Melissa Nann Burke and published in January 2009, revealed that the founding family was drawing millions in salary and making loans to themselves via Angel Food Ministries.

On Feb. 11, agents from the FBI and from IRS’ criminal services division searched AFM’s Monroe, Ga. headquarters. The

Angel Food Ministries founders Joe Wingo, left, and Linda Wingo, third from left, walk to their car after a February 2009 meeting in York. (DAILY RECORD / SUNDAY NEWS/FILE)

next day, Joe and Linda Wingo met in York with representatives of local AFM distribution sites to answer questions about the nonprofit’s finances.

AFM went out of business in the fall of 2011.

Court records indicate that this week:

  • Joe Wingo pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering. He faces a possible maximum sentence that would include 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.
  • Linda Wingo pleaded guilty to concealment of a felony. She faces a maximum sentence that would include three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
  • Andy Wingo pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering. He faces a possible maximum sentence that would include 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.
  • Former AFM employee Harry Michaels pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He faces a maximum penalty that would include five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

One thing the AFM case does is put the focus on whether charities and nonprofits are doing the things they say they’re going to do when you give them money. Here are some resources for researching charities.

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Pennsylvania gets high grade for website transparency

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Scott Blanchard

More on this later, but the news release that accompanied this report included the following line: “Among the best performing states were Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, Maryland and Washington.”

Even with a better right-to-know law, Pennsylvania is not known as a public-records-friendly state. So this news might be greeted with a raised eyebrow. Or two. But I’ll dig in deeper and see what the report says. There has to be a reason Pennsylvania’s getting high marks, right?

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You can use the right-to-know law to learn more about agency-business relationships

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Scott Blanchard

If you want to know how much business York County has done with someone, you can do so by requesting the county’s contracts with and payments to individual businesses.

Reporter Ed Mahon did so recently and wrote a story about the county’s financial relationship with McClure Co., the HVAC company that had been doing work in the county prison. On Nov. 21, a carbon monoxide leak from one of the systems sent 49 female inmates to hospitals for treatment.

County officials generally backed McClure. To help residents know more about their relationship with the county, we requested the annual amount the county has paid McClure, and paperwork including a current contract. That’s all part of Ed’s story online.

 

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York County school superintendent contracts are online

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Scott Blanchard

Check out education reporter Angie Mason’s post about the York County school superintendents’ contracts she has collected online.

I linked to the contracts from our Datacenter page, where you can find all sorts of other cool public-records type stuff, ranging from teacher salaries to who owes delinquent property taxes to who’s giving money to political campaigns.

Let us know if you have a suggestion for data you’d like to see on there and we’ll track it down.

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When state lawmakers seek support for their bills, you can get a sneak peek

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Scott Blanchard

State lawmakers send what are called co-sponsorship memos to each other, seeking support for legislation they plan to propose.

Those memos are now available online.

“It’s pretty cool,” state Rep. Ron Miller, R-Jacobus, told YDR political reporter Ed Mahon last week.

Indeed. Any time a state body makes public records more easily accessible gives people the chance to know more about their government and what their representatives are doing.

Mahon wrote a story about what’s in some of the memos.

You can view the memos here. For example, you could see that one legislator (not from York County) wants trained municipal or regional police officers to be able to use radar to catch you speeding. See, that’s good information to know, isn’t it?

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Sandusky lawyer: State has no legal right to revoke pension

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Scott Blanchard

The Associated Press’ Mark Scolforo reports that the AP used the Right-to-Know law to get a copy of a letter written by Jerry Sandusky’s lawyer that appeals the state’s decision to revoke Sandusky’s pension.

Sandusky’s pension was worth $59,000 per year, but the Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement Board revoked it after the former Penn State assistant football coach was sentenced in October on his child sex abuse convictions.

Scolforo wrote:

Sandusky attorney Charles Benjamin’s five-page letter to the board, written two weeks ago, was obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press through the state Right-to-Know Law.

Benjamin’s letter says Sandusky’s pension rights vested in 1969 and weren’t changed by later amendments to state pension law. He argues that Sandusky wasn’t a Penn State employee after tougher forfeiture rules were passed in 2004.

The retirement system yanked his pension after Sandusky was sentenced in October to 30 to 60 years in state prison for sexual abuse of 10 boys. He’s a retired assistant football coach.

Benjamin didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Posted in Pennsylvania Right to Know | 1 Comment

Pa. lottery: State senator asks Corbett for copy of company’s privatization bid

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Scott Blanchard

Marc Levy of The Associated Press filed this today, noting that a Democratic state senator wants Gov. Tom Corbett to release unredacted public records of a company’s bid to run the state lottery:

HARRISBURG, Pa.  — Democratic lawmakers are taking aim at the Corbett administration’s move to privatize the Pennsylvania Lottery’s management, saying it is shrouded in secrecy and will result in a corporate giveaway that diverts hundreds of millions of dollars from the state’s services for the elderly.

In a Friday letter, Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Allegheny, asked Gov. Tom Corbett for an unredacted copy of the proposed agreement between the state and Camelot Global Services, an unredacted copy of Camelot’s bid and a full explanation of the scope of expanded lottery gambling being considered.

“A decision as important as handing over an extremely well-run, efficient, and successful lottery to a foreign company should not be made behind closed doors, by a limited amount of people and without public input,” Costa wrote.

Corbett has said he is exploring privatization of the lottery management to see if a private company can help ensure that lottery profits keep pace with demand for programs that benefit the state’s growing elderly population. A substantial expansion of lottery gambling to keno and online games is expected to be part of the Republican governor’s plans to produce more lottery revenue.

One of the nation’s largest state lotteries, the Pennsylvania Lottery had $3.5 billion in sales in its last fiscal year, of which about $1 billion was profit that benefited programs for the elderly.

Corbett administration officials expect to decide by Dec. 31 on whether to award the contract to Camelot, a Britain-based company that runs the national lottery in the United Kingdom. It is the lone bidder after two other companies, which the Corbett administration will not identify, dropped out.

Camelot is pledging to produce more than $34 billion in profits over 20 years if it wins the contract to manage the $3.5 billion system, profit projections that are in line with the lottery’s past performance.

Continue reading →

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Report: Angel Food Ministries’ fraud case held up by mountainous paperwork

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Scott Blanchard

A Georgia newspaper reports that the federal government’s case against the leaders of

Angel Food Ministries founders Joe Wingo, left, and Linda Wingo, center, walk to their car after a meeting in York in February 2009 to address a report on their high salaries and other questions about the nonprofit.

Angel Food Ministries, a nonprofit that used to operate several sites in York County, has been delayed because of massive amounts of paperwork.

Members of the family that created the nonprofit face fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and other charges. The Athens Banner-Herald quotes a defense motion saying that the pretrial discovery in the case will be more than the equivalent of 60 million Word documents.

A judge granted a request to extend the deadline to argue pretrial motions to Dec. 31, the newspaper reported.

In January 2009, the York Daily Record/Sunday News broke the story nationally that the nonprofit was paying its leaders millions in salary and loaning money to the family who founded it. From that story, reported and written by Melissa Nann Burke:

CEO Wesley Joseph Wingo, a church pastor known as Joe, got a pay increase from $69,598 in 2005 to $588,529 in 2006.

Wingo’s wife and the couple’s two sons saw similar boosts in pay, although the next year the family’s compensation fell closer to 2005 levels.

Family members also borrowed money from AFM. At the end of 2007, the Wingos owed a balance of nearly $1.1 million on loans from the Good Hope, Ga.-based charity, according to the latest-available tax records.

Charity watchdogs said the high salaries and loans raise the question of whether some of Angel Food’s earnings are being used to benefit insiders instead of for a charitable purpose.

Dan Busby, an accountant and acting president of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, looked at AFM’s 2006 tax documents and noted the compensation and loans. His group emphasizes the importance of financial accountability, transparency and sound board governance at Christian nonprofit organizations.

“For a nonprofit that emphasizes helping the poor to take $2.5 million in executive and family compensation that is 12.5 percent of (that year’s spending) for what appears to be insider salaries — and to loan $700,000 to insiders in the same year — is extraordinary,” Busby said.

“The public would generally look askance at such practices.”

The nonprofit was later sued by its own board members, investigated by the federal government and eventually went out of business.

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New York Times report: Local, state incentives pour in to York County, other businesses

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Scott Blanchard

A New York Times investigation of incentives that cities, counties and states award to businesses show 70 listings for York County businesses having received all or part of grants, loans or incentive programs. The top nine listings total $30.3 million.

The incentives cover grants or state programs. The Times’ report does not say which years are covered by the numbers, but the earliest grant listed for a York County company occurred in 2008.

The Times said its “investigation has examined and tallied thousands of local incentives granted nationwide and has found that states, counties and cities are giving up more than $80 billion each year to companies. The beneficiaries come from virtually every corner of the corporate world, encompassing oil and coal conglomerates, technology and entertainment companies, banks and big-box retail chains.”

Many major York County businesses are on the list, including:

  •  Da-Tech Corporation, which received $7.7 million in grants including a film tax credit, job creation tax credit and machinery & equipment loan fund grant.
  •  Church & Dwight, which received $3.09 million, including an infrastucture development program grant, job creation tax credit and customized job training.
  •  Waste Management of Central Pa. Inc., which received $80,000 from the opportunity grant program and in customized job training.

York County officials have put together a plan that includes incentives that they hope will convince Johnson Controls to stay in the county if it leaves its Spring Garden Township location.

Explore the Times’ data and read the stories at the links above.

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