As the Imperial Potentate flies around the world and as board members travel from all over the country to meet in Tampa and to places like Hawaii and wherever else to conduct business, who pays their expenses?
In an attempt to get the other side of the story, the following email was sent on March 23, 2009 and follow up calls were made to Marlena Laguna-Klein, Shriners VP of communications.
To date, there has been no response, including the disclosure of the Shriners' 2007 exempt organization tax return AKA the 990. According to the IRS, nonprofits have 30 days to supply the past three years of tax returns if so asked and face penalties for not doing so.
"Dear Marlena,
My name is Sandy Frost and I'm an on-line investigative journalist who specializes in investigating issues of nonprofit compliance. My work is here.
This is a request for the 2007 SHC 501c3 tax returns as they don't seem to be available on Guidestar.org.
Emailing them back to this address or posting them online meets IRS disclosure regulations.
I have a question about the 2006 SHC 501c3 tax return, please find attached.
On page 2, Section 2, Statement of Functional Expenses, Line 29 "Travel" lists $7,080,265. It's not clear how much of that was spent on board expenses, whether it's a board of directors or board of trustees.
I have the same question about Line 30, Conferences, conventions and meetings. How much of the $666,254 went toward board expenses?
I'm asking this because Part V-A, pages 32 - 33 indicates that officers, directors, trustees and key employees list $0 for expense account.
This would mean that those individuals serve voluntarily and pay their own way to Shriner functions, etc. Is this true?
For example, a Texas newspaper is reporting that there is a meeting of the joint boards with hospital officials to discuss the Galveston SHC situation. Do the board members attending this pay to fly to Tampa themselves, pay for hotel, meals, etc? Do the Galveston SHC officials pay their own way?
Thank you in advance for your cooperation,
Sandy Frost"
Here is a timeline that may paint a clearer picture of how the Shriners operate, including how closing the Galveston hospital led to the UTMB taking legal action against them for doing so.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).