|
top
The National Herald - October 14-20, 2017
Leadership 100 Grants Missing from Archdiocese
By Theodoros Kalmoukos
NEW YORK – Over $2.5 million
worth of funds donated by Leadership 100, intended to be allocated to various departments of
the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese
of America in support of specific
programs and ministries were actually not allocated for those purposes, sources have told The National Herald.
As in previous similar instances of misallocation, causing
wide disturbance, no one seems
to know what happened to the money.
TNH has learned that some
of the heads of departments
were persuaded, at the risk of
losing their jobs, to falsify their
annual reports to indicate that
the funds were received.
But as was proven a few
weeks ago, no monies were
transferred.
Leadership 100 Chair George
Tsandikos did not respond to
TNH’s request for comment, and
Executive Director Paulette Poulos told TNH that she cannot
speak on his behalf.
A prestigious and well-organized nonprofit established in
1984 during the tenure of Archbishop Iakovos, Leadership 100
was based on finding 100 Greek-Americans to give $100,000 each
– either as a lump sum or in installments.
It can only support existing
Archdiocesan programs and cannot pay for the Archdiocese’s operational expenses or its deficits
or loans.
|
|
George Tsan- dikos, Vice Chairman of the Archdio- cesan
Council and also Chair- man of
the Leadership 100
|
|
During Archbishop Spyridon’s
tenure, it became an independent and separate corporation
from the Archdiocese for security
purposes. Specifically, to prevent
the Archdiocese of using The
Leadership 100 funds for operational expenses and also to defend against possible legal implications of pedophile priests and
other clergy sexual misconducts.
Leadership has in its coffers
$91.1 million. It is comprised of
1060 members out of whom 680
have fulfilled their pledges. Since
1984, it has given over $48 million to the programs and ministries of the Archdiocese, the
Holy Cross School of Theology,
and the Metropolises.
It gave $2.6 million in 2017,
$3.67 million in 2016, $1.73
million in 2015 and an additional $700,000. In 2014, Leadership gave $2.4 million, including $100,000 for the ministries
of emerging leaders.
Recently, Leadership gave
$75,000 to Archbishop
Demetrios to publish a special
edition of the Orthodox Observer to answer to the many
revelations TNH made about the
Archdiocese’s financial situation.
A few weeks ago, the Archdiocese eliminated the entire
Observer staff, stating that the
publication was being eliminated due to financial constraints. Of note is that $75,000
is an approximation of the annual salaries of the staff whose
positions were eliminated.
The archbishop will attempt
in his encyclical to say something similar he said on October
1st at a New York parish: “we
have money because we have
Leadership 100, the Organization Faith, and the St. Michael’s
Home for the Aged.”
Again, to clarify, Leadership
100 is a separate organization
and its funds are restricted for
specific purposes. The Faith organization has already distanced itself from the Archdiocese and gives scholarships
directly to Greek-American college students and to the Ionian
Village as TNH recently reported.
TNH is in a unique position
of having obtained information
that many Leadership members
are annoyed, primarily because
the organization gave the
$75,000 to the archbishop for
the Observer and now wonder
“why did we give our money for
this type of spending?” Also,
they demand to know what happened to the funds given for the
Archdiocese’s programs and
ministries, which are unaccountable for at least one year.
Some in the Archdiocese are
scrambling to say Demetrios
didn’t know what was happening with the finances and that
the deficit was in the millions.
Note that Demetrios was desperately seeking large amounts
of money from Michael Jaharis
and Nicholas Bouras to pay the
Archdiocese’s employees.
[ The National Herald - October 14-20, 2017 - p. 8 ]
[ The National Herald - www.thenationalherald.com/177485/leadership-100-grants-
missing-archdiocese/ - October 8, 2017 ]
|