Head of Bradenton domestic violence shelter ordered to testify on spending scandal at charity

Florida legislators want to know what Laurel Lynch, executive director of the HOPE Family Services domestic violence shelter in Bradenton, knew about the recently discovered spending scandal at the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Lynch is among the 13 current and former board members and staff of FCADV to be subpoenaed by state legislators as they investigate the exhorbitant spending at the agency under the leadership of former CEO Tiffany Carr.

Lynch served as FCADV’s board chair in 2017, and she and Carr have worked together for more than 20 years. In addition to her work in Bradenton, Lynch has filled a variety of roles with the FCADV.

HOPE Family Services receives the majority of its funding from FCADV, which receives about 99 percent of their funds from state and federal taxpayers.

Carr’s $761,561 annual salary — which included two pay raises totaling $313,475 over a two-year period — raised eyebrows when it was disclosed in the summer of 2017. Calls for an audit into the agency’s finances were met with resistance and outright defiance.

Under increasing pressure to turn over those documents, Carr resigned in November, citing poor health as her reason.

Lynch’s ties to Carr are both professional and personal and lawmakers will undoubtedly like to know more since Lynch sat on the board’s “compensation committee” that recommended Carr’s staggering salary increases.

“We are all concerned about what happened with the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence,” said state Rep. Margaret Good, D-Sarasota.

Good, a member of the Public Integrity and Ethics Committee that will hear from Lynch and the others next week, said committee members are on a fact-finding mission.

“I know one of our members is speechless and it’s almost hard to believe someone would do this and take this kind of liberty with our tax dollars and not give it to the victims of domestic violence,” Good said. “We are very, very early in this process. Last week was the first time we received a batch of documents from FCADV and we’ve just issued the subpoenas so right now the committee and staff are working through these documents, but this certainly merits a full investigation.”

Fallout from the scandal is already beginning.

Melody Keeth, CEO of the Serene Harbor shelter in Brevard County, is among those who have been subpoenaed to testify about what they know. On Friday, Serene Harbor’s board announced it and Keeth were “parting ways” because the scandal.

That doesn’t look to happen anytime soon in Bradenton, according to Rosemarie Fisher, president of the board of directors at HOPE Family Services.

“Oh yes, I have total confidence in Laurel,” Fisher said. “She’s one of the most ethical and frugal people I have ever known.”

Fisher said she has notified board members the topic will be up for discussion at their meeting on Feb. 25, the day after Lynch is scheduled to testify in Tallahassee.

“The important thing is that this doesn’t involve HOPE,” Fisher said. “We receive money through them, but we have our own accounting systems and the county monitors us and we always have a clean audit. Certainly this means we need to get out to all of our funders so they know we are not directly involved in this.”

In 2011, when Carr and the FCADV were under scrutiny for an expanding budget — and legislative complaints began about lack of oversight in executive salaries due to a Florida statute that singled out FCADV as the sole contractor with the Department of Children and Families — Carr sold her North Carolina home to Lynch shortly after Carr purchased a new mountain home for twice as much money.

The Miami Herald reached out to Lynch last summer about the sale and her relationship to Carr. Lynch said the sale of the home had nothing to do with the FCADV, even though the sale was notarized by the agency’s chief financial officer.

Lynch did not return several requests for comment on Tuesday about the subpoena and her relationship with Carr and the FCADV.

According to HOPE Family Services IRS filing available through 2018, funding from FCADV to HOPE Family Services increased by almost $900,000 from 2013 through 2018. Total revenue for HOPE Family Services in 2018 was more than $2.4 million.

Lynch’s 2018 salary was $115,000, according to the agency’s IRS Form 990, not including benefits.

Carr was questioned in 2017 about her salary, but told reporters that her pay was a board of directors decision and they had the right to lower or raise it at any time. However, it was reported that Carr hand selected directors, including Lynch, to act as the compensation committee.

Lynch was not one of 26 emergency shelter directors in Florida who condemned Carr’s actions in a recent letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis. The governor has ordered the state inspector general to investigate the “exorbitant compensation payouts,” to Carr and other staff members.

In addition to her salary, Carr was allowed to accumulate more than $5 million of paid time off while also receiving her salary, a vehicle allowance and travel to and from her North Carolina home.

The Florida House is expected to move quickly this week with HB 1087, which would repeal FCADV’s sole contracting rights with DCF.

In the meantime, the Public Integrity and Ethics Committee has a lot of work on their hands to dig into how this could have happened.

“It’s two-fold right now,” Good said. “First, we have to ensure the funds allocated to domestic violence shelters are being used to help the survivors. That’s the focus of our entire committee, to make sure those funds remain intact. Secondly, is to ensure we have a full investigation into the FCADV and to get an understanding of what happened to get it to this point.”

Those subpoenaed are expected to appear before the committee beginning at 1 p.m. on Feb. 24. Good said it could be just the first step given that the committee is still trying to sift through documents.

“We’ll see what happens,” she said. “There are multiple people subpoenaed right now so we’ll see how the questioning goes and see where we are from there.”

This story was originally published February 18, 2020 at 12:29 PM.