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Director of refugee service resigns
Saturday, February 6, 1999
By RON REDMOND and ANDREW SCHNEIDER
Kim Long Nguyen resigned as executive director of the Refugee Federation Service Center yesterday and Gov. Gary Locke ordered an independent audit of the agency, the largest provider of social services to refugees in Washington state.
The actions followed a two-day Post-Intelligencer report in which refugees, former staff and official documents revealed questionable practices at non-profit agencies run by Kim Long, including falsified records, improper billing, concealed funds and services said to be done that weren't performed.
Locke's office ordered the Department of Social and Health Services to conduct an independent audit of the Refugee Federation Service Center and to present an interim report to the governor by March 5.
A news release said Locke also directed DSHS to develop and implement oversight guidelines for monitoring contract performance in the agency, provide staff training on contract compliance and monitoring, and institute a random audit program.
"The information provided to me by DSHS on Refugee Federation Service Center demonstrated a well-developed contract compliance program and no immediate evidence of irregularities on the part of the Refugee Federation," Locke said. "But I believe there is also room for improvement in some areas of the contract monitoring program to ensure the appropriate use of public funds."
Locke has run into Kim Long Nguyen before. In 1995, when he was still King County Executive, Locke ordered a halt to funding for programs at Touchstones, a now-defunct social service agency chaired by Kim Long.
State auditors found that Touchstones had double- and triple-billed the state, county and city of Seattle by more than $330,000 in 1993 and 1994. Locke failed in subsequent efforts to get Kim Long to repay more than $164,000.
The city and state also failed in their efforts to retrieve nearly $120,000 from Touchstones.
All three governments continue to fund other agencies headed by Kim Long.
In a six-month investigation of those agencies, scores of refugees and three former staff members told the Post-Intelligencer the Refugee Federation and another agency did not provide all the services it claimed.
Post-Intelligencer interviews with 75 of the thousands of people listed in a confidential federation database as having received services in the past four fiscal years found questionable claims in 32 of the cases.
Many of the clients disputed federation claims that it had placed them in jobs or provided employment-related workshops or other services.
It is impossible to determine the total amount that the Refugee Federation billed for questionable services without interviewing every client from the past decade.
But if the client sample examined by the Post-Intelligencer is representative of all the federation's billings for the past four years, the amount billed from questionable cases would be about $3 million.
Kim Long has said he had nothing to do with the federation's billing and day-to-day operation.
He has been executive director the Refugee Federation since 1984. The agency provides job-related social services to about 1,500 people a year with a budget of about $2 million.
Johnny Shek, chairman of the Refugee Federation's board of directors, said yesterday that Kim Long had handed in his resignation but Shek was not certain the board would accept it.
"We have Kim Long's resignation but whether or not we accept it will be decided by the board on Sunday," he said.
"Our concern is for the good name of the federation and we're sure Kim Long shares that concern."
The federation has hired a lawyer who specializes in white-collar crime and another management consultant to examine its operation.
"We believe we had a very good system of internal control to prevent inadvertent or intentional problems with accountability, but perhaps it is not as good as we thought," Shek said. "We are going to have outside experts, highly qualified, come in, examine our operation and tell us how we can improve the safeguards."
Those responsible for the federation's contracts praised its actions yesterday.
Jeff Kibler, who manages refugee affairs for DSHS in Western Washington, called the board's actions "important steps."
"I would hate to see the efforts of the federation staff branded by this mess," Kibler said. "Many of them have worked hard for their clients for years."
Thuy Vu, head of DSHS' Office of Refugee and Immigrant Affairs, said his agency has a "good check and control system in place, but there's always room for improvement."
Liz Begert Dunbar, acting assistant secretary in the Economic Services Administration of DSHS, said those checks include a variety of measures, including contacts with clients through state community service offices, safeguards to reject erroneous billing and regular monitoring by the Seattle-King County Private Industry Council.
Five current and former staff members at the federation told the Post-Intelligencer, however, that quarterly monitoring visits by the Private Industry Council involved up to three weeks' advance notice of which individual client files would be monitored. Other non-profit agencies dealing with refugees that also are monitored by the council said they received no such advance notice and described the practice as highly irregular.
Dunbar, however, described it as standard practice and "often done in contract monitoring."
In a related development, state Rep. Jim Clements, R-Selah, said yesterday he will push to strengthen accountability in the oversight of non-profit agencies.
Clements, who served as chairman of a House select committee that looked into Touchstones and other non-profit agencies in 1997, said he will discuss his plans next week with Secretary of State Ralph Munro.
"You're giving me the powder to put in the bullet," said Clements, who has been pushing to establish a centralized list of problem agencies, possibly in Munro's office.
"I plan on meeting with Ralph Munro to take a look at this problem over time and to see if we can make his office a clearinghouse and get a higher degree of accountability."
P-I reporter Ron Redmond can be reached at 206-448-8336 or ronredmond@seattle-pi.com
P-I senior national correspondent Andrew Schneider can be reached at 206-448-8218 or andrewschneider@seattle-pi.com
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS
Editor's note:
Newer developments have cast doubt on the accuracy of this story. Please see the followup story.
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