Washington Blade - September 16, 2005
Lou Chibbaro Jr.

"The board wants to maintain a level of openness and transparency," Center president Michael Sessa said. "The board plans to provide a full picture of the Center's financial history."

Critics have charged that the Center organization had spent tens of thousands of dollars on start-up related costs before it opened its doors in an office building on 14th Street, NW in February of this year. Center officials say they have provided services and activities for the community as a "virtual" center for the past several years, a procedure that centers in other cities have followed during their start-up years.

Another D.C. gay group whose finances have come into question, the Whitman-Walker Clinic, provided more details this week than in the past on the finances of the city's annual Capital Pride festivities.

But the Clinic's interim executive director, Roberta Geidner-Antoniotti, said Whitman-Walker will not reverse its longstanding position withholding the release of a detailed finance statement itemizing the costs and expenses associated with the D.C. Gay Pride parade and festival.

Whitman-Walker is the D.C. area's largest health clinic providing services to people with HIV. It also provides non-AIDS related medical and mental health services for gays.

It has co-sponsored and operated D.C.'s Capital Pride parade and festival with the gay film festival group One In Ten between 1997 and 2002, Clinic spokesperson Kim Mills said. Mills said the Clinic assumed the role of sole sponsorship and operational authority for the Capital Pride events in 2003.

Geidner-Antoniotti noted that Whitman-Walker releases an annual finance statement providing details of the Clinic's nearly $30 million budget each year. She said the Clinic's board has determined it was not necessary to direct the Clinic's auditors to take the time, and possibly to incur more expenses, by preparing a separate finance statement for Capital Pride.

She said Capital Pride events have operated under an internal budget of about $200,000 in recent years. According to Geidner-Antoniotti, Capital Pride events have yielded a surplus of about $20,000 during the past three years, which the clinic uses to support its non-AIDS programs for the gay community.

"We are a $30 million organization," she said. "We don't break down every internal operation."

Similar groups elsewhere more open on finances

Sessa and Geidner-Antoniott's comments on the finances of their respective organizations came after the Washington Blade completed an informal survey of the financial disclosure policies of gay community centers and Gay Pride organizations in other cities.

The survey found that gay centers and Pride organizations in all but one of the cities contacted - Baltimore - release annual finance statements itemizing their expenses and income.

Gay centers in large cities such as New York and Los Angeles have budgets exceeding $1 million and have obtained tax-exempt status from the IRS. The federal agency's rules require that they file an IRS 990 finance statement, which must be released to the public upon request.

Baltimore's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center sponsors that city's annual Gay Pride festival, block party and parade, said executive director Craig Wiley. Wiley said his organization releases an annual finance statement and 990 form that incorporates the costs and expenses of the Pride events, which he said cost about $40,000.

In other cities, such as Los Angeles and New York, separate organizations run community centers and Pride events, with each of the groups releasing detailed annual finance statements to the community, officials with the groups said.

Whitman-Walker also files a 990 form, but that form does not itemize expenses and income associated with Capital Pride.

Sessa said the D.C. Center would file its first 990 form in November. He noted that IRS rules do not require tax-exempt groups to file 990 forms if their annual income is below $25,000.

The tax year 2004 was the first year the Center has had an income exceeding $25,000 since it incorporated in 2002 and obtained its tax exempt status in late 2003 or early 2004, said Patrick Menasco, the D.C. Center's past president.

Sessa said the Center invoked an automatic six-month postponement made available by the IRS for filing 990 forms, which moved the deadline for submitting the Center's form to November of this year.

"We plan to make it available to the community after we file it," he said, of the center's 990 statement.

Sessa said one of the reasons the Center has delayed releasing a finance statement is that the board is sorting though internal records documenting the transition of the Center's financial management from the Cherry Fund and the Center's board.

The Cherry Fund, a charitable group that sponsors D.C.'s annual Cherry circuit party, acted as the financial agent for the Center from the time of the Center's founding in 1999 and its incorporation in 2002.

Menasco, a former Cherry Fund board member, said the Cherry Fund raised a total of about $275,000 for the Center between 1999 and 2003. He said Cherry Fund officials wrote checks on behalf of the Center prior to 2003 as the Center organizers developed plans and carried out programs, including an $80,000 study to gauge the need for a Center.

He said the Cherry Fund turned over the remaining balance of the funds it was holding for the Center - about $165,000 - in late 2003 or early 2004, when the Center received approval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS.

This week, Sessa said the Center had about $35,000 remaining in its treasury. He said the Center was receiving a modest income from small grants and donations from supporters and planned to hire a development manager to boost the organization's fund-raising programs.

Sessa said the Center would release more details on all aspects of its spending and income when the board decides to release its finance statement. The finance statement should be available before the Center files its required 990 form, Sessa said.

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