Elderly care firm audited in 2001

A nonprofit group in Southeast accused of selling free meals to the poor came under federal scrutiny a few years before the District this month stopped funding the group, according to federal officials.

An audit report in 2001 showed Senior Citizens Counseling & Delivery Service Inc. did not have enough revenue to meet its expenses, used federal funds for non-federal purposes and failed to report a tax lien, according to officials at the federal Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS).

Senior Citizens Counseling & Delivery Service also issued checks to Foster Grandparent Program participants that bounced, said CNCS spokesman Sandy Scott.

The CNCS inspector general’s office turned over information from its inquiry of Senior Citizens Counseling to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said William O. Hillburg, spokesman for the inspector general’s office.

Federal prosecutors declined to file charges in 2002 “after concluding that there was insufficient evidence to prove criminal charges beyond a reasonable doubt,” said Channing Phillips, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The Ward 8 nonprofit lost its city funding April 2 after a D.C. Office of the Inspector General’s report found the group had sold free meals to ineligible recipients, including Maryland residents. The meals, which had been paid for by city government, were supposed to have been given to low-income senior residents.

The city’s report recommends that the D.C. government try to recoup nearly $300,000 from the group.

Senior Citizens Counseling has denied the accusations in an appeal the group filed in response to the city’s decision to halt funding. “We have never charged eligible seniors for our services,” said Executive Director Concha Johnson. “Any allegation to the contrary is utterly and totally false.”

Mrs. Johnson described the D.C. inspector general’s report as being “flawed from beginning to end.”

Senior Citizens Counseling voluntarily withdrew from the Foster Grandparent Program in 2002.

Since the 2001 federal audit, Senior Citizens Counseling has received more than $1.9 million from D.C. government to provide free meals, transportation and recreation services to low-income senior citizens in Ward 8, according to city officials.

Yesterday, the D.C. Office of Aging announced that the Greater Washington Urban League would provide services previously offered by Senior Citizens Counseling until Sept. 30.

“Services to seniors in Ward 8 will not be disrupted as a consequence of the discontinuance of month-to-month funding of services provided by Senior Citizens Counseling,” said E. Veronica Pace, executive director of the D.C. Office on Aging.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Johnson disputed that her group ever came under federal scrutiny.

“There was never an audit,” she said. “If there had been, we would certainly have known about it because [the corporation] would have requested and received access to our books and records. This never happened.”

In addition, she said some banks did not honor checks to Foster Grandparent Program recipients because the participants had waited longer than six months to cash them.

Nonetheless, William DiVello, assistant inspector general for audits for the D.C. Office of Inspector General, said the city’s Office on Aging failed to keep track of how Senior Citizens Counseling was spending city funds.

“It seems to me that this was a troubled provider for quite some time,” Mr. DiVello said of the nonprofit group, which is located at 2451 Good Hope Road SE. “The Office on Aging needed to do a much better job.”