BANGOR, Maine — The organizational disarray of a social service agency that owes the state $1.3 million became more apparent Tuesday when former members of its board of directors learned they still were listed on state paperwork despite having left Manna Ministries months or years ago.
Confusion over the board’s status came to light when two of the six people listed as board members in the agency’s 2015 annual report to Maine’s secretary of state told the Bangor Daily News that they hadn’t been part of Manna’s board for a significant period of time. Their names had been listed in a BDN story based on the report.
Marcia Bond of Veazie said she left the board in October 2010, and Michael Anderson of Winterport said he resigned in December 2014. Both said they left to better handle personal and business matters. Anderson said that another board member listed in the documents, Peter McLean of Bangor, also had left the board but he was not sure when. McLean has an unlisted phone number and could not be reached for comment.
“I am a little surprised by it,” Anderson said Tuesday of the erroneous annual report listing, “but things fall through the cracks.”
Stephan Lanfer of Yarmouth, who remains on the board, said the panel last met as a group in March 2014, while Manna Executive Director Bill Rae said Tuesday the full board had met in summer 2015, but he could not supply a precise month, date or meeting minutes.
Lawyer Michael Guare, who said he joined the board last summer, said Tuesday that the situation was “highly unfortunate.”
“We screwed up and it needs to be dealt with,” Guare said. “I, Bill and the other members of the board are all aware that we have made mistakes here, and we should have been meeting and been much more involved in what has been going on than we have been. That needs to be addressed and addressed now.”
The board, Rae said, now consists of himself, his son Mark Rae, Guare and Lanfer.
One of the national leaders of charity organizations, The National Council of Nonprofits, defines boards as “the fiduciaries who steer the organization toward a sustainable future by adopting sound, ethical, and legal governance and financial management policies, as well as making sure the nonprofit has adequate resources to advance its mission.”
The state Department of Health and Human Services said Friday that Manna owes $1.3 million for mismanaging a drug counseling clinic in Medway and receiving Medicaid overpayments. Manna, which operates two faith-based drug counseling programs, a food pantry, soup kitchen, and other counseling at its Bangor location on Main Street, also lost its corporate charter earlier this year and is operating illegally, officials have said.
To reinstate the charter, Rae said Monday he named himself as the nonprofit corporation’s new corporate agent, replacing lawyer Joe Baldacci of Bangor, who resigned in November 2015.
Rae initially told the BDN he had received board approval for the move. On Tuesday, he said he did not consult the full board.
“It is clear that a lot of administrative stuff has not been going very well, but there is a lot of good, effective work going on,” Lanfer said. “It is easy to say, well they should do this, but where the heck is the money going to come from?”
Board meetings fell off over the last few years because some members were too far away and became involved in their own issues, Lanfer said.
Rae accepted blame for the situation, saying Tuesday that he hadn’t updated the board of directors listing because he didn’t know he had to. Battles with cancer and the stress of managing the agency exacerbated his financial and administrative shortcomings, he said.
“I don’t like working with money. I like working with people,” Rae said.
Lanfer said he hoped that newspaper coverage and administrative difficulties would not detract from the fact that the agency is doing vital work helping people overcome poverty and addiction despite problems with the state.
“Unfortunately, the impetus and energy and organizational work that needed to happen for board meetings to occur fell to Bill and, with his illnesses and other work, it was unfortunately too much for him to handle,” Guare said.
Rae is a good man, strong in his Christian faith, trying to keep the 23-member organization going, said Lanfer, who said he kept tabs on Manna’s administration with phone calls to Rae at least two or three times per week.
“I have known for a long time that he has done a hell of a lot of good work. He has committed himself, and he loves God,” Lanfer said. “I am willing to overlook the oversight [issues] because he is doing the good work.”
Manna Ministries served about 107 people on Monday and Tuesday, with Rae doing much of the labor himself, Rae said.
“As far as I know, they are doing fine,” former board member Bond said. “One of the big things is, I am not a financial person.” She said she stayed on the board because “I really liked that we were helping people who needed help.”
Guare said he will push the board to meet within the next few weeks to discuss and remedy the situation. Rae said he hopes to have a board meeting on June 1.
Both expressed hope that financial contributions to the organization, Manna’s lifeblood, would continue despite the management problems.
“The most honest inference I can draw from this is that when a group of busy people get together and try to do something, it is very easy for meetings to get pushed to the background. It was a function of the board and Bill had an overwhelming amount of work and other issues to deal with,” Guare said. “There is no sinister motive there. No one was intending to allow things to get to this point.”