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Senior county officials were apparently hopeful late last year that the small nonprofit now at the center of an alleged embezzlement scandal and FBI raids – the Viet America Society – could actually take on a major role in feeding seniors across Orange County.
Even after several years of problematic invoicing.
Key line staff had been raising concerns about problematic invoicing from the nonprofit on its senior feeding programs going back as far as February 2022.
[Read: OC Staff Raised Early Concerns on Viet America Society Contract That Saw FBI Raids]
Now, a county lawsuit is alleging leaders at Viet America Society embezzled federal COVID bailout money and bought houses with it – including one for Supervisor Do’s daughter.
[Read: Orange County Sues County Supervisor’s Daughter and Nonprofit Over Missing COVID Money]
Yet in recent emails reviewed by Voice of OC, senior county executives seemed to fret when the nonprofit pulled out of the most recent contract competition last year.
Click here to read the most recent records.
It all came 10 months before federal agents raided houses and businesses of those connected to the nonprofit, including Supervisor Andrew Do’s home.
[Read: FBI Executes Searches on OC Supervisor, His Daughter & Others in Missing COVID Money Case]
“Dylan and I have a plan.”
That was the email message sent to County of Orange CEO Frank Kim on the morning of Oct. 17, 2023 from Lilly Simmering, a high ranking County of Orange executive working inside the CEO’s office – often on damage control.
Dylan Wright, head of OC Community Services, was the other senior executive on the email chain, also seemingly in the midst of overseeing contracts in the brewing controversy around the Viet America Society.
Kim sent back an odd and immediate response to Simmering.
“We all resign at same time?”
“Yes! And go work at Disneyland,” responded Simmering – who this month abruptly resigned.
Officials confirm her last day at the County of Orange is Sept. 19.
Early Concerns
That October 2023 email chain, unearthed in voluminous county public record responses reviewed by Voice of OC, came at the tail end of what seems to have been a tough relationship for county line staff and executives over the course of a few years trying to work with shoddy invoicing from the nonprofit.
All while public funds kept flowing to the group.
The email conversation between Simmering and Kim was prompted by an email from Rita Gore, a procurement contract analyst at the county, notifying seven executives, including Simmering, that Viet America Society had withdrawn its bid to feed seniors.
It’s unclear whether the executives were worried about political blowback from the nonprofit nixing its bid after pushback on invoices.
Or whether the email chain is evidence of official nerves just as media reports would begin to flow about a month later about the nonprofit and its connection to Do.
None of the current county executives involved have responded to requests for comment through county officials, who now point to the lawsuit against the nonprofit as preventing comment.
Former County CEO Frank Kim did respond to a question about his email comment about mass resignations, calling it “an unfortunate bad joke” that referred to the county’s inability to get more diverse senior meal vendors to bid on services.
Kim added that he was unaware of the issues with Viet America Society’s invoicing at the time of the email conversation.
“I wasn’t aware of this issue with VAS,” Kim said in a brief interview Tuesday. “I wasn’t aware there were compliance issues.”
Kim said it’s not uncommon for the county to experience invoicing issues with vendors.
“Like any large organization, you have problems with vendors from time to time,” he said.
Kim disputed that county officials ramped up contract monitoring due to media coverage, saying a regular audit called for additional documentation and the nonprofit’s inability to detail invoices snowballed over the course of this year.
Kim said that as county officials stepped up their invoicing demands, he kept county supervisors – including Do – informed.
“He never told me to back off,” added Kim, who retired this July.
The LAist was the first to come out with the connection to Do in procurement last November while also raising questions about whether the contracted services had actually been delivered.
Over the course of this year, the nonprofit went through several sets of auditors and lawyers without being able to answer county attorneys’ questions that services had been rendered.
Viet America Society’s current attorney, Mark Rosen, has said the services were delivered despite issues with invoices.
[Read: How Did County of Orange Executives Lose Track of Over $10 Millon Meant to Feed Seniors?]
What is clear now is that the County of Orange in a recent lawsuit filing against leaders with Viet America Society and Hand to Hand Relief Organization – detailed how county officials kept processing really light invoices over the course of several years for Viet America Society, starting in 2021.
In a series of public records on the issue reviewed by Voice of OC, there’s a host of invoices submitted by Viet America Society that were reviewed and approved by a series of top County of Orange executives.
[Read:Santana: Orange County’s Bankruptcy of Oversight]
Many of those invoices simply state the monthly cost.
No cost breakdowns whatsoever.
“Between May 2021 and May 2023, VAS submitted a minimum of 24 invoices to the County pursuant to the ARPA Contract, for a total amount of $3,999,984.00,” reads the county’s lawsuit.
“For each invoice, under description of services, it simply states, ‘Services for the County of Orange Nutritional Gap program.’ The invoices fail to include the specificity required under the ARPA Contract, such as number of meals delivered per day, number of deliveries made per delivery day, and total number of meals served,” County of Orange attorneys allege.
The court filing states after officials asked the nonprofit about it “VAS and other Defendants provided fabricated, false numbers to the County that in a post-hoc attempt to hide their fraudulent scheme.”
Records show that some of the county’s most senior officials oversaw those contracts and invoices including Wright, Cymantha Atkinson, Renee Ramirez.
To read some of the correspondence, click here.
James Harman from the office of County Counsel – whose own office is now suing the group for what it calls fraudulent invoices – approved Viet America Society’s most recent contract amendment.
All of these executives declined to be interviewed through a county spokesperson.
None of this should be a surprise.
For starters, when the federal government sent nearly a billion dollars to the County of Orange, OC Supervisors at the time – chaired by then-Supervisor, now incumbent candidate for Congress, Michele Steele – did a horrible job of engaging the public on what would be done with the money.
Instead, they chose the least transparent approach.
And when it came to looking over ensuing invoices and managing an array of nonprofits, it looks like county executives phoned it in.
Protecting the Brand Instead of Oversight
It’s classic County of Orange: Pass The Buck 101.
Survive, stay out of the headlines, protect the brand, get your pension.
The problem with that approach is that it usually leaves a mess for taxpayers to pick up.
Not to mention the continued loss of faith in government.
In the wake of federal raids across OC last month, that is the challenge now facing the County of Orange.
It’s similar to the challenge faced in Anaheim a few years back in the wake of a very public FBI corruption scandal that ended a bid to sell off Angel Stadium.
How do you restore trust?
Several key lessons are staring back at anyone reviewing the mounting pile of public documents on this issue – virtually all of them revolving around fulfilling the legacy of the 1994 county bankruptcy reforms.
There’s a real need for a strong, professional, independent CEO – checked by a popularly elected board of supervisors but not run by them.
Stronger independent auditing, like the Office of Performance Audit, needs to make a comeback.
Strong citizen oversight needs to become part of the culture at the County of Orange.
Supervisors Katrina Foley and Vicente Sarmiento have both been vocal, calling for accountability on the Viet America Society and Hand to Hand Relief Organization contracts as well as the need for auditing the $200 million in COVID funds handed out by county officials since 2020.
For now, there’s a professional executive as CEO in the likes of Michelle Aguirre, a well-regarded former head of finance at the county. At least until the end of year when she reportedly has the ability to retire.
The recruitment for a permanent replacement for the chief executive at the County of Orange is now seemingly poised to become another key focus and measure for reform.
That means it will likely take longer and even see a broadened candidate pool.
Instead of the continued cone of silence approach to protecting the OC brand, county officials – especially elected officials – can really help the public interest by leading a vibrant conversation based around helping taxpayers perform the most basic function of free government.
Follow the money.
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