Previous CEO of Kan. foster care firm defends monetary mismanagement

By SHERMAN SMITH
Kansas Reflector

TOPEKA — The previous CEO of Saint Francis Ministries states he billed 1000’s of dollars to the organization’s credit score cards mainly because of the job’s travel and fundraising requires.

And, he mentioned, the $65,000 invest in of Cubs tickets was just an prospect to flip them for a financial gain on the secondary industry.

Robert Smith, recognised as Father Bobby, released a statement Tuesday by a general public relations business in which he lamented the “inaccurate and uninformed reporting” that adopted his departure from Saint Francis. The nonprofit foster treatment supplier severed ties with Smith and other leadership in November following an investigation into Smith’s money dealings.

Kansas Reflector on Sunday claimed on the outcomes of an investigation that substantiated allegations of fiscal misconduct by Smith. The story revealed Smith from 2018 to 2020 billed $469,000 to credit playing cards for costs that involved 1st-course upgrades on airways, five-star places to eat and inns, luxury men’s clothes and Apple iTunes purchases. He did not answer to Kansas Reflector inquires for comment.

“To remodel an business necessitates tireless exertion and dedication,” Smith said in the statement he launched Tuesday. “I accepted the desire of becoming on the road for times and months each and every month — travel that incurred 1000’s of pounds invested on airways, motels, foods and donor development functions.”

Smith explained he bought $65,000 well worth of Chicago Cubs playoffs tickets in 2019 as portion of “a exclusive fundraising opportunity” provided by an unnamed benefactor. If the Cubs experienced built the playoffs, Smith mentioned, Saint Francis could have marketed the tickets for “far much more than the confront benefit of the tickets alone.” When the Cubs failed to make the playoffs, the $65,000 was refunded to Saint Francis.

“This was strictly a profits possibility, formalized by a authorized contract between Saint Francis and the benefactor,” Smith said.

Saint Francis employed a Kansas Town, Kansas, attorney to look into Smith immediately after a recently employed chief financial officer introduced concerns about the organization’s economic problems to the board of directors in October. The investigator concluded that Smith hid money losses from the board, approved $11 million in payments to a company operated by Invoice Whymark for software program that crashed and ruined fiscal documents, and used hundreds of hundreds of dollars on functions in El Salvador that provided the harvest of a “miracle” food stuff and credit history playing cards asked for for the reason of bribing neighborhood officials.

Greg Meissen, chairman of the Saint Francis board, said Smith experienced justified investments on the premise that the program and miracle foodstuff would finally generate gains. Those revenue in no way materialized, and Meissen reported the board was unaware of the correct costs of the endeavors.

An previously whistleblower report, delivered to the Kansas Department for Youngsters and Households in November 2019, objected to the dealings in between Saint Francis and Whymark. The nameless writer of the report recognized Whymark and Smith as enterprise partners.

Whymark operates WMK Research and SFW Systems, each registered to an address in Mount Kisco, New York. At just one level, the website for SFW Technologies recognized Smith as a senior principal and executive director of social expert services. The photograph and biography of Smith was eliminated from the internet site just after workers questioned him about the marriage.

The investigation into Smith included an job interview with an accountant who wondered if the amount of expending on Whymark’s company amounted to embezzlement. A evaluate of invoices and e-mail confirmed Smith expended little time examining the invoices ahead of approving them, even though they reflected an unbelievable total of time billed by Whymark.

“Let me suitable just one of several gross faults that has been recurring in media experiences,” Smith said in his statement. “While I grew to respect and admire the depth of his intellect and abilities, I was hardly ever a personalized, business lover with WMK Study president Invoice Whymark.”

Saint Francis employed Smith as CEO in 2014. He turned a canonical resident in the Diocese of Chicago in 2012.

Smith explained he was honest in his attempts to transform Saint Francis into a nationally and internationally revered group. The Salina-centered foster care supplier serves 3,100 little ones in Kansas and is celebrating its 75th calendar year as a social welfare company.

“I am happy of what our team of incredibly big-thinking and devoted industry experts completed in my 6.5 several years at Saint Francis,” Smith said. “I regret that with my resignation, the mission we started out will not be fulfilled as originally envisioned.”

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The above story is republished with authorization from Kansas Reflector.

Sherman Smith has written award-profitable information stories about the instability of the Kansas foster care procedure, misconduct by authorities officers, sexual abuse, technologies, instruction, and the Legislature. He spent 16 decades at the Topeka Funds-Journal, where he started off on the duplicate desk, then oversaw digital functions, was the managing editor and documented from the Statehouse.