United Way to Expand Board to Boost Local Participation

United Way of America, seeking to reverse recent financial and management troubles, expanded its board of governors Wednesday to increase local involvement in national decisions.

By a vote of 349 to 13, with 19 abstentions, United Way members approved new rules that expand its board of governors from 30 members to 45, with at least one third to be elected as representatives from local United Ways.

W. R. Howell, chairman of the board of governors and chief executive officer of J. C. Penney Co. Inc., said the new board makeup would provide “more focused service to our members throughout the country.”

Howell said the change, part of a new set of bylaws, “greatly increases the direct hands-on involvement those members have in this organization.”

But Steve Webster of Madison, Wis., representing 14 Wisconsin United Way groups, said the changes did not go far enough in ensuring local participation in decisions of the national organization.

The new bylaws include a requirement that all board members serve on at least one committee and that they be volunteers, not employees of local United Ways. They also call for creation of six new committees--on nominating, budget and finance, compensation and human resources, ethics, membership and programs, and services--with at least half of the membership of each committee to be people recommended by local United Ways.

United Way of America has scaled back expenditures since its president, William Aramony, resigned in February after reports of lavish spending and questionable payments to spin-off corporations.

Kenneth W. Dam, an IBM executive serving as interim president, said about 975 of the approximately 1,400 local United Ways have resumed paying 1992 dues. Most of them suspended payments because of the controversy surrounding operations of the national group.

Howell said the board also considered changing United Way’s name, but decided the present name is “a big asset” and changing it “would impair our ability to communicate.”