Thursday, March 24, 2011

Crime Stoppers for McHenry County - what a mess

Since late last summer I have been attempting to obtain information about Crime Stoppers for McHenry County, which Illinois State Crime Stoppers identifies as a "coalition" that collects statistics (whatever that means) from Algonquin, Crystal Lake, Lake in the Hills, McHenry, Woodstock, Cary, Fox River Grove, Marengo and Harvard police departments.

Of significance, I have learned it is virtually impossible to make any contact with Crime Stoppers for McHenry County. Helen Torscher, then-Secretary and now-President, sent me one rather curt letter in October and has refused to reply to a second letter or to email. Richard Heizer, possibly last year's president of the group, has not returned a phone message left on March 4.

I've tried to learn whether it is a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt organization. They apparently told a national Crime Stoppers organization that they are tax-exempt, because that's a requirement for membership. One small problem - IRS doesn't know about it. And, if IRS doesn't know about it, then it's not a 501(c)(3) organization!

Now I've learned that they can't locate initial organizational paperwork and records. Apparently, when different board members were elected as officers, such as President, Secretary, Treasurer, they didn't bother to obtain and secure the records. Surely, out of all the money they have raked in over the years, they could have gotten legal advice. Just in the past 3 years and 3 months, they have received over $50,000 from the McHenry County Circuit Court alone. In 2009, they paid out only $3,400 in tips.

Where's the rest of the dough?

I was offered an excuse on their behalf that "significant turnover" of volunteers might account for some of what I'll call sloppiness in record-keeping. Only I'll bet, if I look at the lists of board members and officers over the years, it looks more like Musical Chairs than turnover.

1 comment:

FatParalegal said...

Disturbing to say the least.