Unsuccessful Fund-Raisers Got Raises

Los Angeles County officials gave hefty raises to employees diverted into a disastrous fund-raising program that wasted thousands of public dollars without raising a cent for health programs, according to documents made public Wednesday.

The Department of Health Services employees were assigned to the Foundation for Health Services, a nonprofit corporation created three years ago by county officials seeking to raise funds for hospital construction by soliciting contributions from the private sector.

In all, the foundation spent $726,019 in public money to run its ill-fated fund-raising effort since 1989. The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to terminate its contract with the foundation after learning that its only fund-raising event had lost money.

Terrell Ford, a 23-year veteran of the health department, has been receiving an annual county salary of $69,149 to run the foundation, according to county records. The salary includes a $5,900 annual increase over the pay he received in his previous position as a hospital administrator.

In an interview, Ford said he had no professional fund-raising experience and acknowledged making many mistakes in his effort to get the foundation off the ground.

He said the foundation hired county health workers because professional fund-raisers would have been too expensive.

Ford said he and his staff of five employees--also on the public payroll--had high hopes for a massive direct-mail campaign. They had printed nearly 100,000 brochures, which were never mailed, in part because most of the foundation’s database of potential donors was destroyed in the recent fire at health department headquarters.

Officials once hoped that the foundation would generate $3 million to $5 million annually in donations. But Irving Cohen, the foundation’s treasurer and chief financial officer for the health department, acknowledged Wednesday that the project was a failure.

According to records, Ford and his staff spent $62,209 to set up an office for the foundation in a storage area at Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center in Downey.

Before assuming new positions as county fund-raisers, most of the foundation’s employees worked in various capacities at the Downey hospital. Jeanie Johnson, a hospital staff assistant, received a $10,609 annual salary increase to become an analyst for the foundation.

Stephen Sampley moved from a position as a medical photographer to become the foundation’s director of special events and received a $7,178 raise. Sampley helped organize the group’s single fund-raising event, which lost $16,640.

The foundation also paid $49,400 in architect fees for a model of a hospital wing that will likely never be built. Ford said the county group joined the Starbright Foundation in what was to be a multimillion-dollar fund-raising and construction project. Starbright later pulled out of the project.

But Ford said the foundation’s most embarrassing moment came last October when staff members organized a $150-a-plate gala fund-raising dinner.

The event--which featured Robert Guillaume performing songs from “Phantom of the Opera”--lost money, in part because the foundation overspent on production costs. For instance, out of the $149,052 budgeted for the event, more than a third--$51,128--was spent on lighting and audio production.

“The costs were higher than anticipated and it’s my fault,” Ford said. “Some of it was overkill.”

The foundation paid a private firm $5,000 to organize casino games at the gala that brought in only $2,500, Ford said.

Despite the difficulties, Ford expressed hope that the foundation could be kept alive if it became self-sufficient in the 120 days before its contract is due to expire.

“We can still gather our forces and call our influential donors to make a run at raising $200,000 or $300,000 by the end of July.

“We weren’t expected to achieve results until after the third year (of operation),” he said. “We’ve got brochures and literature and a million things ready to go out in the mail.”