The foundation managing half of North Carolina's share of the national tobacco settlement violated open-meetings laws and could be better protected from investment risk and political influence, State Auditor Beth Wood's office said yesterday.
The audit said that the Golden LEAF foundation, which has awarded $393 million in grants to help tobacco-dependent and economically troubled areas since 2000, approved a $15 million investment to lure a beverage company to the state in a private board meeting in 2005 that was closed to the public.
The foundation is chartered by the General Assembly and subject to the state's open-meetings law. Auditors said that the group also initially failed to provide minutes from 29 of the panel's 429 meetings.
"As a result, operational transparency and the public's right to monitor the administration of state funds were compromised," the audit said.
The auditors decided that foundation staff were uncooperative to the point that they could not be sure that the audit is based on their complete review of records.
Foundation President Dan Gerlach said that some open-meetings mistakes were made but disagreed with Wood's "limited scope" label on the audit. He said that auditors arrived just before he became president in October 2008.
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