She’s married to the founder of the Colomb Foundation, which began in
2004 and lists in at least one state document that it is to encourage “everyone to adopt habits of personal safety,”
to promote “breast cancer prevention and early detection,” and to encourage
“reading by publishing and distributing” free books to area youth. That’s all
we can go on because, as previously reported, it apparently never received a final letter of
determination from the Internal Revenue Service, which would require a
statement of purpose, nor filed any of the Form 990s it legally was required to
from 2004-10, when as a result it lost its tax-exempt charity status.
Yet it still holds itself out (as of this publication date) illegally as such, even
though it apparently never has received any revenues at all from any source,
donor or otherwise, except from state and local governments, according to its
audited reports filed with the state (typically late and with adverse notes).
They show from the state it got a free $300,000 building and the majority of
its funds have been spent on administrative expenses, including salaries.
In other words, it has been nothing else but an instrument to vacuum
money from taxpayers to get an expensive asset and provide living expenses for a
few individuals in exchange for providing minimal services already being
performed by government and other legitimate IRS-approved charities. Further,
it has not fulfilled the details of at least one compliance agreement with the
state from many years ago, about which a month ago Treas. John Kennedy
sent a dunning notice at long last along with others to other groups.
And because he did that, Colomb vents several declarations, starting
with this idea of “political war” against her. But all Kennedy or anybody else
is doing is reporting factual situation: she sponsored the line items giving
money to this group and to another, including the $300,000 building fund item
about which one has failed to document properly to the state, but there have
been no aspersions cast against her. In fact, there’s not even been a mention questioning
whether she had any direct connection to the group, which began to
collect money from the state within months of its founding (at that time she
was not married to the founder but had a relationship with him), if this group
ever would have received any state money at all, or ever have been founded.
(The other group, Serenity 67 formerly headed by her legislative aide, also lost IRS tax-exempt status in 2010 apparently after never having filed a Form 990 of any
kind even though it first filed organizationally with the state in 1993, about the time Dorsey-Colomb, then under a previous
married name, entered the Legislature by special election. Within two years of
its founding, it began receiving state money by line item along with federal
money annually generally in the $300,000-$500,000 range, as well as donations
generally less than $10,000 a year. It has not completed its required audits
for fiscal years 2011 or 2012 yet, after its loss of tax-exempt status.)
Instead, Dorsey-Colomb’s pouts that the media focus on the two groups
she vouched for is “unfair” because there doesn’t seem to be much media parsing
of the relationships between legislators and the other 32 groups named by
Kennedy. Maybe there hasn’t been, although the awards to the two groups were
among the largest made by taxpayers and most of the those in the same monetary
range either have come into compliance or are working with Treasury staff to
rectify. Then again, neither life nor politics are fair, and the fact remains
regardless of publicity concerning other miscreants neither group is in
compliance despite knowing of these requirements for six years and despite having
all of the information available to comply as evidenced by the (chronically
late) annual audits performed on the organizations. Her excuse makes about as
much sense as a parent’s complaining her kid shouldn’t be ridiculed for
cheating seeing as several other kids cheated as well.
She also drags out the “dog-ate-my-homework” excuse when she claims the
documentation has been sent but somehow “lost” by Treasury, then insinuates the
whole thing has become dramatized because Kennedy is strongly thinking of
running for governor in 2015. So what? That’s an open secret, but at the same
time Kennedy is fulfilling his legal duties in pursuing this information. He
could be running for dogcatcher, or for nothing at all, but those
considerations are irrelevant and independent from the fact that he’s doing
what a treasurer is supposed to do.
Simply, the facts are these: organizations connected to a state
senator, despite signing agreements to do so, have for years failed to make
proper reports to the state. Further, this includes one group that continues to
misrepresent itself as a tax-exempt charity, that got taxpayer money to gift
itself a building and has never seemed to raise a cent on its own outside of
taxpayer largesse, and that has spent a majority of these funds on the
activities of a handful of individuals including a legislator’s husband that
are duplicative of government and other legitimate charities.
2 comments:
What has your hero governor done about all the state spending on these NGOs?
Several comments:
First, thank you Mr. Kennedy!
Next, this has gone on, apparently, all five plus years of Mr Jindal's administration - when it could have been stopped or curtailed with his great power, the line item veto.
Finally, a senator repeatedly sponsoring and voting for appropriations to the NGO of a family member has to be unethical and/or illegal - right?
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