{"id":1493,"date":"2017-05-01T07:29:08","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T14:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vccf.org\/?p=1493"},"modified":"2025-01-29T07:48:46","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T07:48:46","slug":"city-ok-with-vccf-finance-official-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/es\/city-ok-with-vccf-finance-official-says\/","title":{"rendered":"La ciudad est\u00e1 de acuerdo con el VCCF, seg\u00fan un funcionario de Hacienda"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
By Kyle Jorrey and Becca Whitnall<\/div>\n
tonewstip@theacorn.com<\/a> becca@theacorn.com<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

En City of Thousand Oaks<\/span> intends to keep in place the approximately $4.5 million it has invested with the Fundaci\u00f3n Comunitaria del Condado de Ventura<\/span> in spite of a recent scathing report by the California<\/span> attorney general\u2019s office that says past VCCF leadership badly mismanaged funds.<\/p>\n

Mil Robles Finance Director John Adams<\/span> told the Acorn this week the foundation is on the right path with CEO Vanessa Bechtel<\/span>, the person who reported the organization\u2019s shortcomings to the attorney general shortly after she was hired in 2015.<\/p>\n

Founded in 1987, VCCF oversees $112 million in total assets in scholarship and grant funds that benefit students and nonprofits throughout the county, including the city\u2019s two public theaters at Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have met with the CEO and CFO of VCCF several times over the past two years and they have kept us informed,\u201d Adams said in an email. \u201cThey self identified some issues and, after the attorney general\u2019s review, have developed a plan to address those past issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bechtel told the Acorn that the foundation will comply fully with the corrective actions outlined by the attorney general in its February report, including the paying back of $1.8 million to certain endowment funds by 2029. Neither of the city\u2019s two funds held by VCCF were directly affected by mismanagement and therefore are not subject to payback, Adams said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a report that the attorney general\u2019s office chose not to publish or make public\u2014we chose to do that,\u201d Bechtel said. \u201cIt\u2019s very important for us . . . to make sure we are very open and transparent so we can best serve (our donors) and our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Report findings<\/p>\n

The bulk of the issues highlighted in the Attorney General<\/span>\u2019s report are related to the foundation\u2019s building on Mission Oaks Drive<\/span> in Camarillo<\/span>, purchased in 2012.<\/p>\n

The report says VCCF leadership estimated they could raise $10 million in a capital campaign for the building; instead, they brought in less than $500,000.<\/p>\n

As a result, VCCF used $3.8 million in endowment funds meant for operating costs to purchase the building and to renovate it, the report says. The amount represented around 83 percent of the foundation\u2019s total endowment, leaving just 17 percent in investment pools.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was . . . imprudent for prior (VCCF) management and the board to purchase the building without sufficient funds to manage the associated debt,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n

Making matters worse, the foundation leased space in the building to nonprofits at a discounted rate for a period of 15 years, which hurt the organization\u2019s bottom line and made it impossible to sell the building without incurring a substantial loss, the report says.<\/p>\n

Beyond purchasing a building it could not afford, VCCF had for years mishandled endowment funds by leaving the cash in low-yield money market accounts as opposed to investment pools, the attorney general\u2019s investigation found.<\/p>\n

The $1.8 million the foundation was ordered to repay represents the estimated damage to funds caused by the long-term money market allocations.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood faith is no defense in an action against directors who breach the prudent investor rule,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n

\u2018In lockstep\u2019<\/p>\n

Although former foundation CEO Hugh Ralston<\/span> is gone and the foundation named a new board chair in January, the organization\u2019s board remains the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese nine people have stayed on the board to see this process through,\u201d Bechtel said. \u201cThe board has been in lockstep with the attorney general and I think it\u2019s important we were unanimous in the decision to self report.\u201d<\/p>\n

IN A NUTSHELL<\/span><\/p>\n

All members of the Community Foundation board have been instructed by the attorney general to receive additional training on their fiduciary duties.<\/p>\n

Since its fiscal mismanagement was uncovered by Vanessa Bechtel in 2015, the foundation has reduced its staff from 22 to five and refinanced its multimillion-dollar mortgage after the lender agreed to better loan terms. T.O. Finance Director John Adams is confident the foundation is in good hands with Bechtel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe the new CEO understands (the foundation\u2019s) fiduciary responsibility and will guide the board accordingly,\u201d Adams said. \u201cThey do have the leadership and board engagement to continue to be an asset for all of Condado de Ventura<\/span>.\"<\/p>\n

VCCF has already repaid $400,000 of the $1.8 million and retained an outside consultant to review its current investment policies to ensure similar financial mistakes don\u2019t happen again.<\/p>\n

Foundation board member Gary Erickson<\/span> said, \u201cTransparency is the only path to fully restoring the trust and confidence of our donors and the community we serve. . . . We regret the path that led to this situation and are taking aggressive steps to ensure it will never happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bechtel believes the foundation has put a \u201cdifficult chapter\u201d behind it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am especially grateful to our donors and supporters for sticking with us through a challenging time. This reflects both our commitment to transparency as well as our 30-year track record of providing critical support to Ventura County residents,\u201d Bechtel said.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1494,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-coverage"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}