When Tyrone Area YMCA Director Amy Hampton came on board in mid-March of this year, she knew that the financial situation at the venerable non-profit was tight. She knew that the economic climate in Tyrone would also make fundraising especially challenging. She hadn\u2019t expected to discover roughly $60,000 in unpaid federal and state payroll taxes, dating back to 1999.
\n\u201cI was aware that the Y was not in great shape, that there were internal problems and that the last director had been asked to leave,\u201d she said. \u201cAbout three weeks ago our accountant stopped by to welcome me. It was then that I learned of the problem.\u201d
\nThe problem is the YMCA never paid its share of the federal and state taxes for their employees. While the withholding tax for the approximately 40 employees was paid, the additional share owed by the organization was never paid. Nine quarters worth of taxes equaling nearly $45,400 in federal and about $15,000 in state liabilities.
\nHampton said she immediately notified the Board of Directors, which is headed by John Harlow. Harlow, who was acting director from October 2001 until March of 2002, said that he first learned of the mismanagement at that time as well.
\n\u201cWe were trusting that we were given the right information,\u201d he said, noting that the taxes were the responsibility of the director. \u201cI guarantee this board never would have said, \u2018Don\u2019t pay your taxes.\u2019\u201d
\nHarlow noted that the YMCA accountant, John Ramsey CPA, had informed the previous director of the problem, but it never appeared on any of the director\u2019s reports supplied to the board. Harlow noted that he did not view the audits supplied by Ramsey, either.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve been on the board for three and a half years and I\u2019ve never seen an audit,\u201d he said. \u201cYou would hope that that would be on the director\u2019s report. We were told the taxes were being paid.\u201d
\nHarlow also noted that at the time he was acting director, the YMCA\u2019s bookkeeper was responsible for the taxes and he never saw anything in the organizations financial reports that indicated to him anything was amiss.
\nHampton said that when she learned of the problem she checked the 2000 report and approached the bookkeeper. \u201cI was told that there was a decision made not to pay the full amount since the Y did not have the money.\u201d She said she was unaware of who made that decision and pointed out, \u201cI\u2019m not sure if it was mismanagement or outright deceit.
\n\u201cSomewhere along the line someone had the idea that just because you are a nonprofit then you don\u2019t have to operate like a business,\u201d she continued. \u201cI don\u2019t know what decisions were made and by whom, but I know that poor decisions were made.\u201d
\nHampton said that she is \u201cvery active\u201d in the day to day financial operations of the YMCA. She said as the staff, board and accountant continue to access the situation, there are still many unanswered questions and uncertainties concerning the future of the Tyrone Area YMCA.
\nIn tomorrow\u2019s edition of The Daily Herald, more on the current situation at the YMCA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Tyrone Area YMCA Director Amy Hampton came on board in mid-March of this year, she knew that the financial situation at the venerable non-profit was tight. She knew that the economic climate in Tyrone would also make fundraising especially challenging. She hadn\u2019t expected to discover roughly $60,000 in unpaid federal and state payroll taxes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}