Foundation Fails to File Reports, Officials Say

The National Fitness Foundation, a nonprofit corporation raising millions of dollars to build a fitness academy and promote physical fitness, has failed to file required financial reports in Illinois, California and Orange County, according to government officials and records.

But former professional football coach George Allen, chairman, chief executive officer and founder of the corporation, said steps are being taken to bring the organization’s government filings up to date.

The foundation is required to file various reports with agencies in states where it operates. One purpose of these reports is to provide the public with a look at what tax-exempt organizations do with the money they raise.

Until inquiries in May from The Times, Allen’s organization also had not obtained the required permit or filed the necessary annual reports with the Orange County Social Services Agency, an agency spokeswoman said.

The permit is required of charitable organizations soliciting money from the public. Among the financial data organizations must report is how much of the money raised actually is used for charitable purposes.

Allen said those documents will be filed.

Although the National Fitness Foundation has operated in California since 1985, it had not filed required financial reports with the state attorney general’s Registry of Charitable Trusts until it filed its 1986 documents this month, after inquiries from The Times.

Government records show that on May 15, 1986, when a report was due, the foundation requested a two-month extension from the registry because Allen was “out of town and will not return in time to sign the form.”

On May 10, 1988, one day after a Times reporter told foundation accountant Philip Marshall that the report still was not on file, Marshall telephoned the registry to request a six-month extension, state records show.

The 1986 report was finally filed June 6, according to registry official Duane Reule. An extension to Aug. 15 has been granted for filing the foundation’s 1987 report.

However, the foundation still has not submitted a copy of its articles of incorporation as requested, Reule said.

Meanwhile, the California secretary of state’s office mailed the foundation a “delinquent letter” on April 6, 1988, because it had not filed a required list of its officers, according to Jane Bacon of the corporate division. The list was due in December, 1987.

Failure to comply with state filing requirements can result in the foundation being suspended as a corporation and no longer permitted to conduct business in California, Bacon said.

The National Fitness Foundation was incorporated in Illinois in 1982, but the Illinois secretary of state dissolved the foundation March 2, 1987, for failure to file its 1986 annual report, Illinois records show.

As a dissolved corporation, the foundation “should not do charitable solicitations in Illinois,” said Phillip Mueller of the Illinois attorney general’s office.

IRS officials say the Illinois dissolution has no effect on the foundation’s federal tax-exempt status.

However, the California Registry of Charitable Trusts is uncertain how the dissolution affects the foundation’s operation in this state.

“What is the status of a corporation, that’s a foreign (out-of-state) corporation, that has been involuntarily dissolved in another state? I don’t know,” Reule said.

Reule has drafted a letter to the California secretary of state’s office asking what effect the dissolution has on “the organization’s authority to transact business in California.”