COVINGTON — The Northern Kentucky Community Center received May and June United Way allocations totaling $29,000 on Friday, after center officials belatedly provided the charity organization with an audit of the agency's 1999 operations.

        The routine financial audit of the east Covington center's 1999 operations was given to United Way on June 29.

The Northern Kentucky Community Center received May and June allocations from United Way after filing a late audit for 1999 operations. (File photo) | ZOOM |

        “We do admit that we've been behind on some things here,” said Rollins Davis, the center's executive director. “But we also stand behind our integrity that no funds have been misappropriated.”

        Carol Aquino, a spokeswoman for United Way, confirmed the community center received its funds for May and June, after turning in the 1999 audit.

        “We are releasing this money in accordance with what we had earlier specified,” Ms. Aquino said. “But it doesn't change anything. We are not funding them for fiscal year 2002. We're proceeding with the process that we've outlined.”

        In May, United Way announced that it would no longer fund the private, non-profit agency in the heart of Covington's African-American community, effective July 1 of this year. In cutting nearly half the center's budget, the charity cited management concerns and the center's inability to show what it had accomplished with its United Way-funded programs.

        While the center still offers a day care and youth development programs, other services — including a federal program that provided free food to more than 130 families — have been discontinued.

        The $171,167 that would have gone to the Northern Kentucky Community Center has been set aside for use in east Covington by other nonprofit agencies.

        Two forums have been scheduled — both from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. — to hear how the community thinks that money should be spent. The first will be July 19 at St. James AME Church, 120 Lynn St., and a second one will be July 25 at the United Community Christian Church, 1710 Maryland Ave.

        A subcommittee of volunteers from east Covington is doing a door-to-door survey of east side residents to decide how the money should be spent. United Way expects to announce its funding decisions in early September.

        Mr. Davis said Friday that “the organization is in a restructuring stage,” and he and the community center's board of directors are working on a plan to make the center financially self-sufficient.

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