Spending by Child Home Questioned by Auditors

The operator of a group home for troubled youth in Inglewood has spent thousands of dollars of the facility’s money to pay for her Range Rover, Jaguar, condo association fees and the inflated salary of her daughter, according to a county audit of the home’s finances.

In question are $340,190 in unaccounted expenditures made in 1996 by Joyce Lewis, who was the executive director of the Inglewood Group Home, authorized for 11 years to operate two residences housing up to 12 foster children at one time.

Of that amount, $25,046 was spent by the executive director for personal items, the audit said. No receipts or canceled checks were produced to account for the rest of the funds, according to the audit by the county’s auditor-controller department. Lewis, 52, a former schoolteacher who said she opened the group homes because she wanted to do more for troubled youth, acknowledged in a letter to the county that she did use some of the group home’s funds for personal expenses. But that was only to make up for the $3,000-a-month salary she did not pay herself during 1996, she said in an interview Monday.

“I feel very bad when I know it is not true that I have taken some money,” Lewis said, noting that she was sick during much of 1996 and hired other people to run the financial affairs of her group home. “I have made loans and put in money to the home. It is poor record-keeping, being sick, and people running things that a lot of things got mixed up.”

The Inglewood Group Home, which housed 15- to 18-year-old boys, received $3,245 a month from the county to take care of each child. It was one of nearly 500 group homes in the county caring for about 3,200 troubled youths not able to make it in a regular foster family home.

County officials had never audited the group home before. But two years ago, the Department of Children and Family Services launched a policy of auditing every group home it used. Audits have led to closure of facilities 10% of the time, according to a department official.

Also, a grand jury report earlier this year stated that many of the county’s group homes neglect or abuse their children and should be more closely watched, which the county is now trying to do.

In February, officials inspected the Inglewood Group Home facilities and found that the children were not getting the care they needed, said Genevra Gilden, chief of quality assurance for the Department of Children and Family Services. “So they decided to audit the group home’s financial records.

“We found it was far, far below the standards of our other homes,” said Gilden. “The kids did not have proper clothing. They were not getting the clinical services they were supposed to be receiving. They did not have the proper kind of activities.”

After being unable to account for thousands of dollars in funds, the county closed the home in June, transferring the boys to other group homes, Gilden said.

According to the audit, Lewis spent $7,614 for payments on a Jaguar and $3,911 for a Range Rover, which the county did not consider necessary for the group home’s business. Lewis also allegedly used $4,253 for insurance premiums for her personal cars and $2,478 for payments on a Toyota Camry, which was used a few times for group home business.

Lewis maintains that the Range Rover, which belonged to her son, was used to transport group home children to various activities after the home’s van was stolen in 1993. The Jaguar, she said, was for her personal use.

The list of questionable expenditures, according to the audit, also included:

* Condominium association fees of $3,792 for the executive director’s personal residence.

* Charges totaling $2,162 for a telephone in the executive director’s home.

* Automobile registration fees of $836 for the Toyota Camry.

* Nearly $600 for a dishwasher in Lewis’ home and health club membership fees for the executive director’s daughter.

* Bank fees totaling $2,528 to cover bounced checks from the group home’s account.

Since the group home was closed, the county has stopped referring any business to Lewis’ agency, said Schuyler Sprowles, spokesman for the county Department of Children and Family Services.

The county will now try to resolve the questioned expenditures with Lewis, who said she had canceled checks to account for more than half of the $340,190.

Any unexplained expenditures will be turned over to the county treasurer for collection, Sprowles said.

The Department of Children and Family Services said it has referred the matter to the district attorney’s office, which will decide whether to press charges.

The audit also cited other irregularities. Lewis hired her daughter, now 26, to run errands for the group home, paying her $26,000 from January to November 1996. Based on salaries paid to other employees, Lewis was overpaying her daughter, the audit said.

In addition, Lewis’ daughter was paid $7,100 during the last three months of 1996, but only $1,500 of that was reported to the Internal Revenue Service, the audit said.

The executive director said she paid her daughter a salary commensurate with her duties and all wages were reported.

Lewis is also the director of the Inglewood Foster Family Agency, which she opened two years ago to place children with foster families.