Nonprofit agency board members resign over way agency governed

The Hancock County Board of Supervisors wants a state audit of a nonprofit agency that receives federal funding to assist the underprivileged because four board members have resigned, saying they fear they will be liable because of mismanagement by other key board members.

The four board members who resigned from the Gulf Coast Community Action Agency have common complaints aimed at the agency's executive committee: illegal meetings, interference with the GCCAA staff, questionable spending, and fighting with state and federal agencies over cited deficiencies rather than working to resolve them.

The three Hancock County appointees who resigned -- Cherie Labat, Rhonda Gamble and Christina Richardson -- attended the Board of Supervisors meeting. A fourth board member who resigned, Cecil Lizana, lives in Harrison County and also serves on the Pass Christian School Board.

"The (GCCAA) executive committee runs the agency, makes day-to-day decisions, major policy decisions, and then weeks later presents them to the full board with limited information on the decisions and actions taken by the executive committee," Richardson told the board in a prepared statement. "The board members who resigned were notified by counsel that board errors and omission insurance provides no protection from intentional wrongdoing. The resigning board members were no longer willing to risk personal and professional liability by remaining on the Board of Directors."

GCCAA has a budget of about $14 million a year, most of it to fund Head Start, a preschool program, in Harrison County. The agency also has funding to help people in Hancock, Stone and George counties earn their GEDs and to help struggling residents with utility and household bills. GCCAA serves Harrison, Hancock, George, Greene and Stone counties.

Pamela Fairley of Perkinston chairs GCCAA's board and serves on its executive committee, In an interview with the Sun Herald, Fairley dismissed the complaints of the resigning board members.

"I think they have an alternative agenda," Fairley said. "When you are dealing with an agency that has past-history problems, they are not resolved overnight. A lot of things we inherited, we are trying to work through."

Fairley said she has served on the board for four years.

Because of an existing vacancy, word of a fifth resignation has left the 15-member board with only nine members, Fairley said, but she said the remaining board is working to get the positions filled.

This story was originally published December 7, 2015 at 6:17 PM with the headline "Nonprofit agency board members resign over way agency governed ."