Posted on 06/07/2010 8:42:14 PM PDT by TitansAFC
SIOUX CITY -- The human services agency led at one time by 2010 Iowa gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats nearly closed its doors in the early 2000s in large part because he failed to produce adequate fundraising support after stepping down as CEO, according to a former board member and executive for Sioux City-based Opportunities Unlimited.
Vander Plaats’ inability to raise funds for Opportunities Unlimited in what is described as a hybrid management/board position led to his termination by the board, said Jackie Kibbie-Williams, a former board member and the person who succeeded Vander Plaats as CEO of Opportunities Unlimited.
"He wasn't producing, so he lost his job," Kibbie-Williams told The Journal on Friday. "The board made a decision to discontinue his employment because of performance issues."
Kibbie-Williams is the daughter of Iowa State Senator Jack Kibbie, D-Emmetsburg. She was contacted by the Journal for information regarding OU’s financial situation after the current CEO revealed on Tuesday that Opportunities Unlimited was months away from closing in 2003.
A Republican, Vander Plaats also ran for governor in 2002 and 2006. He frequently refers to himself as a "turnaround CEO" and points to his tenure at Opportunities Unlimited, which provides rehabilitative services to individuals with physical disabilities and brain injuries, as among his qualifications to serve as governor. Previously, he worked as a teacher, coach and principal in Iowa schools.
Vander Plaats, reached for comment on Saturday, said his duties while serving as a board member in the early 2000s were consultative in nature, not centered on fundraising, and he said he was not terminated from the position.
"Absolutely not," Vander Plaats said. "She has no documentation. The letter of resignation... that was a resignation that took place."
A second person close to the organization and with specific knowledge of Vander Plaats’ role supported Kibbie-Williams’ version of events but declined to comment on the record. Vander Plaats supporter and longtime OU board member Kim Hoogeveen would not comment on Kibbie-Williams’ allegation that Vander Plaats was terminated.
"I'm going to leave that between those two," Hoogeveen said.
However, Hoogeveen said Vander Plaats clearly did turn Opportunities Unlimited around by considerably improving the organization’s finances while CEO. The organization had been dealing with a poor financial picture in the mid-1990s before Vander Plaats became executive director.
Vander Plaats served as CEO of Opportunities Unlimited from Feb. 1, 1996, to Dec. 31, 2000, making $81,796 in his last year. While he was CEO, OU increased net assets by roughly $2 million to $2.7 million.
The entity also had plump fundraising years in the final three full fiscal years Vander Plaats served as executive director, receiving $550,211, $495,337 and $541,095 through the fiscal year ended June 30, 2000.
However, OU finances took a turn for the worse as Vander Plaats moved from being CEO to what Kibbie-Williams describes as a hybrid board/management position in 2001.
In the three years that followed annual fundraising totals dropped to $40,375, $32,584 and $27,672.
Public records that every nonprofit organization must file with the Internal Revenue Service indicate that Vander Plaats’ title became president of strategic vision after he stepped down as CEO, with a salary of $88,513 in the 2000-01 fiscal year.
In the fiscal year running through June 30, 2002, he is listed as chairman of the board with a salary of $78,000, and in the 2002-03 fiscal year he is listed as chairman again, with a salary of $63,000. Since 2002-2003, reports show OU has paid no other board member for their service.
By 2003 the organization was teetering on the brink of insolvency, current Opportunities Unlimited CEO Stephanie Brown told the Woodbury County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
"The organization was in dire straits financially," Brown said. "We were literally within months of closure."
Fundraising key issue
Vander Plaats said heading a nonprofit entity isn't an easy task financially, and when he came to the entity it "was on life support, at best." He touted his record in heading the organization "with integrity," helping it move from 54 pages of deficiencies to zero and becoming nationally accredited.
Vander Plaats said the goal had always been to get Opportunities Unlimited off of relying on fundraising to cover ongoing expenses and that that was accomplished in his executive director tenure.
"It went through, in my four and a half years tenure as CEO, a complete fiscal and clinical turnaround," Vander Plaats said.
Kibbie-Williams ran Opportunities Unlimited twice -- in 1994 when financial problems ensued (she was succeeded by Vander Plaats when he joined the organization in February 1996) and then again from January 2001 to 2003, before OU in September hired Stephanie Reinsch-Hahne (now Brown), who still serves as CEO nearly seven years later.
Kibbie-Williams now works for DaVita, a firm based in Omaha that handles medical dialysis.
As he discussed running for governor, Kibbie-Williams said the OU board of directors allowed Vander Plaats to take a leave of absence in early 2001, but was kept on the board.
She said Vander Plaats was essentially working a hybrid position in 2001 and 2002 when running for governor, but "he was an employee first." Vander Plaats said in that time he "cashed in" more than 50 accumulated comp days.
After Vander Plaats finished behind Doug Gross in the June 2002 Republican Party primary, the board decided not to have Vander Plaats return as CEO, she said. In September 2002, OU announced that Kibbie-Williams was moving from interim CEO to president and CEO. Some months later, she said the board terminated Vander Plaats from the fundraising post for failure to produce results.
Vander Plaats in a February 2003 press release announced he was leaving the organization, saying it was "time for a fresh start."
During the fiscal year when Vander Plaats served for a half year as CEO and a half year as board chairman, OU ran a deficit of expenses over revenues by $281,779. In the last two years Vander Plaats was on the board, OU had poor financial years, running deficits of $243,116 and $630,655 through June 30, 2003.
Kibbie-Williams said she was pulling double duty as CEO of Opportunities Unlimited and Village Northwest 60 miles north in Sheldon from 2001 to 2003. OU and Village Northwest are among a trio of separate but affiliated entities, along with Quality Living Incorporated in Omaha. The entities have had overlapping employees and board members, including Hoogeveen, who has been a longtime OU board member and works by day for Quality Living.
Vander Plaats said his post-executive director position in 2001 was to cooperatively consult those three entities, without a focus on fundraising.
What happened to OU?
Vander Plaats said he had "no idea what happened" as OU fell into financial trouble again because he wasn't CEO at the time.
"I was also representing three different companies during that time. So I don't think it is fair for others from the outside to go, 'Oh, but look what he might have been doing.' No, no, no -- they have no idea what we were doing," he said.
Kibbie-Williams said OU experienced constricted revenues in the early 2000s for three reasons -- fundraising substantially decreased, Iowa put a moratorium on intermediate care facilities/mentally-retarded (ICFMR) beds supported through state funding and the state governments of South Dakota and Nebraska also began a focus to keep people served within state lines, reducing OU clientele.
"Our fundraising efforts were subdued significantly when Bob Vander Plaats had left the facility to run for governor. His responsibility during that time were to keep fundraising for us, and he just never had the time to do that, so those revenues were not as significant as in prior years," Kibbie-Williams said.
Kibbie-Williams said Vander Plaats was adept at fundraising in the 1990s when Opportunities Unlimited embarked to build a new facility in Sioux City. She said he was less skilled in serving as a manager of day-to-day operations while CEO.
His gubernatorial campaign biography says Vander Plaats was sought by OU.
"They needed a strong leader to motivate employees, raise funds and provide a strategic vision with attainable goal," the bio reads.
Said Hoogeveen, "(Vander Plaats') tenure at OU, he came in at a very difficult time for the organization. And when Bob left to pursue the governorship, OU had created the program center, it was in much better financial situation, the culture was much significantly better and we had started the children's respite program, which is pretty good results for someone that was in that position not that many years."
Vander Plaats said he appreciates Hoogeveen's continued support. Another longtime OU board member -- Robert Hoogeveen -- is also a Vander Plaats supporter, having donated $200 in 2009 to his gubernatorial campaign.
Vander Plaats noted his consulting company, MVP Leadership, currently has a consulting contract with a parent company of Opportunities Unlimited.
'"If they are in the business of terminating me, I don't think they're bringing me back on to help provide leadership for a parent company of them," he said.
Haley already corrected the record. She said it didn't happen!
Oh,
So you believe Scott McClellan, I see?
Yeah. So did Slick Willy
Scott McClellan had an affair with GWB?
Do you pretend to not understand my comparison?
Anyhow.......Using your aforementioned threshold of proof, you would probably believe he had an affair with Bush if he claimed so.
Sure, sure. Just as I believe that Haley and Folks were talking shop for 3 hours in the middle of the night.
“It doesn’t amongst the lightweight airheads.”
This from someone who actually believed that Duncan Hunter could win the GOP presidential primaries in 2008.
LOL!
- JP
He would have wiped the floor with the boy marxist. Unlike the dithering old RINO who couldn’t figger out that Obama was even a threat to the country.
me:Haley already corrected the record. She said it didn't happen!
Yeah. So did Slick Willy
I answered your implication, so you moved the bar.
LOL!
“Sure, sure. Just as I believe that Haley and Folks were talking shop for 3 hours in the middle of the night.”
You also believed that you could get more than three people to join your ridiculous Falcon Party.
- JP
Yes it is ridiculous. Why don’t you tell us what Falcon stands for then shred it with your keen intellect.
Nevermind, I’m sure Palin tweeted on something, better go cover that!
Or Jim DeMint or Chuck DeVore?
Well, he’s produced some, and he says more is on the way. We’ll just have to see. I’ll be happy to eat crow on this one. But seeing Haley’s denial at the debate, methinks she’s lying.
A more apt comparison SHOULD be if this was Elmer Flibbergabitz running for Governor of Maine and two women came out of the woodwork to say they slept with old Flibber - one having a record of 700 phone calls and scads of texts while Flibber was saying he “barely knew” the floozy - would I go to the mat to defend Elmer’s honor, eventhough I’d never met him, or lived in his state, or knew him from Adam.
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