Back in action: financial troubles plague nonprofit director for decades, but SF won’t disbar her
Image by Wikimedia Commons
Surprise, surprise. After her nonprofit Inter-City got interrupted by “financial mismanagement,” Patricia Doyle came back a few years later to bury Providence Foundation in overspending to the tune of hundreds of thousands. As shady receipts and unfair labor accusations come to light, her ex-accountant says the city should have flagged her much sooner this time around. Maggie Angst writes for the San Francisco Chronicle.
San Francisco officials are investigating staff complaints that the Providence Foundation, which runs shelters as well as other housing programs across the city, is violating city labor laws and using hiring practices marred by nepotism.
The Controller’s Office is also monitoring the organization’s finances after the city said it overspent on three separate city contracts by hundreds of thousands of dollars, among other financial and compliance issues.
“Someone at the city should have raised a red flag when they became aware that she (Doyle) was at the Providence Foundation,” said David Brown, an accountant who previously worked with Doyle. “She’s doing the same things she was doing back then.”
The city attorney’s office and district attorney’s office would not say whether they were investigating Doyle or the Providence Foundation.
A city-ordered March 2007 independent audit noted that Inter-City was provided an additional $200,000 in public funds to pay off debt it accumulated due to overspending. It also found that the agency failed to document employee vacation accruals and billed the city for credit card expenses but failed to record what was purchased.
If the contract had been terminated before it ran its course, Doyle and the nonprofit could potentially have been temporarily suspended or barred from doing business with the city. Inter-City and Doyle were never added to a list of disbarred organizations or executives.
A July 2023 monitoring report from the Controller’s Office found that [Providence Foundation] inappropriately invoiced the city for a toll evasion charge, as well as “sugar-sweetened beverages,” and failed to submit receipts for multiple other expenses billed to the city. It also stated that, in some cases, the agency recorded an employee as having worked but failed to record the employee’s hours on timesheets provided to the city.
The city’s Labor Standards and Enforcement division is now investigating complaints that Providence deprived its staff of paid breaks and holidays and failed to pay them accurately for time worked.
[Emily Cohen, a spokesperson for the city’s homelessness department] the spokesperson for the homelessness department, told the Chronicle earlier this year that the department was trying to help Providence work through its deficiencies because they “played an important role” in the community and, as a Black-led organization, had the “faith and trust of much of the community.” She said, “We really are trying to wrap around this organization and provide them simultaneous support and accountability.”
Read the whole thing here.
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