Bits and Pieces

By: JOURNAL EDITORIAL STAFF | Winston-Salem Journal
Published: August 22, 2009

Disturbing allegations

A scheme to steal more than $300,000 intended for residents of some Winston-Salem group homes is about as low as it goes, especially in a state with a poorly managed and underfunded mental-health-care system. Group-home operators should double their efforts to guard against such crimes.

Angela Branson Boston and Denise Reeder Burgess are charged in the crime. Both are former employees of American Human Services Inc., which operates the group homes for developmentally disabled adults.

Boston, who worked as a program coordinator, faces charges of felony common-law uttering and felony obtaining property by false pretense.

Burgess, the former program director for the company, was charged with common-law uttering and obtaining property by false pretense.

The two are accused of forging special-assistance checks from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services and cashing them without permission, and obtaining money from the state agency by false pretense.

The money was intended to pay for room, board and benefits for nine clients of American Human Services in Winston-Salem. Instead, investigators said, checks totaling more than $300,000 were cashed and converted for the personal use of Burgess and Boston for more than 10 years.

We have to wonder what took the agency so long to make that discovery. Frank Edwards, the new CEO of American Human Services, said that the company, based in Raleigh, was too trusting and didn't ask enough questions. The company now has a new staff in Winston-Salem, he said.

Boston and Burgess apparently made a number of allegations about the company's operations after they resigned, he said. Some were unfounded, he said, but the company's training of workers and its recordkeeping were not up to par. The problems are quickly being corrected, he said.

CenterPoint Human Services, which oversees mental-health care in the area, has relocated the majority of residents from the American Human Services group homes in the city. Edwards said the company hopes to win those clients back.

We sympathize with the residents of these group homes and their families. The weaknesses in the mental-health-care system are already giving them enough trouble.

Wanted: miracle worker

A Minnesota company has a big job: Find a new president for Visit Winston-Salem, the agency under the Forsyth County Tourism Development Authority that markets the county and the city. The company, SearchWide, will be paid up to $37,500.

Visit Winston-Salem has been in a state of flux since Ted Kaplan, a TDA board member and county commissioner, began raising valid questions more than a year ago about whether the agency was as cost-efficient and effective as it could be. Bob McCoy, the former president of Visit Winston-Salem, clashed with Kaplan. McCoy left his post for health reasons last year. Carmen Caruth took the job on an interim basis, but resigned in June.

Visit Winston-Salem has laid off about 10 workers. The agency is supported by the county's hotel occupancy-tax revenues, which had sharply decreased but are on a slight rebound. The board has struggled to find a common vision for Visit Winston-Salem, one that's increasingly results-driven.

So the new president should be a master marketer with new ideas. He or she will have to be charismatic enough to sell the board on those ideas, and tough enough to stand up to the board when necessary. Political skills will be needed to help the board find consensus.

Visit Winston-Salem doesn't need a miracle worker as president, given all these demands, just someone who's pretty close to that status. We trust the board will make sure it gets its money's worth from the search firm.

Now that's oversight

One thing that the members of the citizens' committee overseeing construction spending on the downtown baseball stadium should be on the lookout for is potential conflicts of interest among contractors doing business with the stadium developer, Billy Prim. So Gary Strickland deserves praise for stepping down from the committee because he felt that service conflicted with his job as a contractor.

Strickland, who has been replaced on the committee, told city officials that he didn't feel comfortable reviewing confidential documents relating to the general contractor building the stadium.

Applicants to the citizens' committee were required to be free of conflicts of interest. It's good when someone recognizes their own potential conflict and takes action -- especially in a project where public trust is crucial.