Inquiry Into Y Spending Follows Arrest of Director : Law enforcement: Jamesette Hays Jr. is to be arraigned on charges that he wrote a check to a contractor without sufficient funds to cover it.

Law enforcement agencies and city auditors are investigating spending at the Compton YMCA after the director’s arrest on charges that he wrote a check without sufficient funds to cover it.

Jamesette (James) Hays Jr. is to be arraigned Oct. 23 on charges that he tried to pay a contractor for remodeling work on the Y’s new facility with a check that bounced. Police also are investigating whether Hays wrote the contractor’s name in the endorsement of a $7,164 city check and deposited the money in a Y account.

According to police, Hays then wrote 56 checks with the money. Many of the checks, police say, were to individuals, stores and, in one case, to a home mortgage company.

Police and city officials said they have not determined why the various payments, including the mortgage payment, were made. Hays, who could not be reached for comment, was arrested Aug. 27, almost a year from the date when he allegedly wrote the contractor a check for $8,000 from another Y account that did not have money to cover it.

Hays posted $20,000 bail following his arrest.

The City Council recently hired auditors to examine YMCA spending, but Councilman Maxcy Filer said the auditors may have their work cut out for them.

Filer, one of those who pressed for the audit, said that the city is not sure who is on the Y board of directors, so the auditors have not been able to examine the books.

The YMCA received $180,000 from the city over two years to help buy and remodel a building to house the organization. The city agreed to help the YMCA relocate after city officials decided to raze its former building on Alameda Street in the center of the city’s redevelopment area.

The council also asked auditors to determine whether the Y was operating any programs. The contractor--Roland Dix of R.D. Construction in Los Angeles--said he saw no evidence of program activity at the Y during the four months he worked on its building at 208 N. Long Beach Blvd.

Dix also said he is still owed almost $10,000 on the $25,000 remodeling job, which was paid for with federal Community Development Block Grant funds received by the city.

Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela J.G. Frohreich, who is handling Hays’ case, said there is evidence that Y accounts were handled “quite irregularly.”

She said investigators have determined, for example, that the city check, rather than being deposited in the Y’s main account, was placed in an “account that (until then) never had $150 in it.”

City Manager Howard Caldwell said he is also investigating whether there was misconduct or negligence by city employees overseeing the Y grants, but would only say: “I’m doing an investigation and wherever it leads, that’s where it leads.”

However, a confidential Compton police report prepared for the city manager and the council said: “It is evident that serious problems existed in administering the YMCA project by the various city departments charged with the responsibility.”

The report was signed by Police Chief Terry Ebert and Lt. P.J. Perrodin, coordinator of investigations.

The report focused on two city employees--Timothy Iverson, city grants manager, and Willie James, former contract compliance officer. Iverson is in charge of state and federal funding programs for the city, including the Block Grant program, which was paying for the new facility.

As contract compliance officer, James monitored construction projects funded by the city to assure that contractors paid prevailing union wages and hired minority workers.

Dix, the contractor on the Y project, told police that James told him to falsify payroll records to say he paid prevailing wages.

James, who no longer works for the city, could not be reached for comment. According to the confidential police report, however, “James denied telling Mr. Dix . . . to falsify his payroll records.”

Dix said Iverson, the city grants manager, ignored several inquiries about why the contractor had not been paid. The police report said Iverson “may not have been as aggressive as he should have been” in trying to help Dix get his money, but found no illegal activity.

Iverson said this week that he understood that YMCA officials had held up the final payment to Dix because they were dissatisfied with the remodeling work. He said he did not learn that Hays had allegedly cashed the city check until shortly before Hays’ arrest in August.

Dix said he found out through banking channels that the city had written a joint check to him and to the Y and that the check had been deposited in a Y account.

Dix said he continued to press Iverson and other city staff members without success, then finally went to Compton police.

This is not the first time that Hays has faced a criminal charge. On Tuesday, Hays was ordered to appear in Superior Court in Compton to face new charges that he had violated his probation in a 1987 case in which he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit grand theft. In that case, which involved checks stolen from the Los Angeles-based Motown Record Corp., he was sentenced to three years’ probation.

On Oct. 23, when he appears in court on the latest charge against him, a date will also be set for his probation violation hearing, Frohreich said.