TAMPA URBAN LEAGUE CHAPTER IN MORE TROUBLE; FOULING RELATIONS WITH COUNTY

For years, the Tampa/Hillsborough County Urban League has provided a number of programmes to benefit minority and low-income residents. Youth, adult education, and crime prevention programmes have been mainstays of it's work, along with clerical skills training and relocating low-income public housing residents.

But recently, it's good work has been overshadowed by it's own financial problems, which the Tampa Tribune reports on today. It is currently $3.1 million in debt to the city, county, and Wachovia Bank; the amount also includes a federal tax lien and a circuit court judgement. National Urban League officials placed the Tampa/Hillsborough affiliate on probation two years ago due to "issues of performance"; it remains on probation today.

It was just last year that the Urban League was bailed out of $600,000 in federal tax and construction liens along with late payments to contractors. Now it is fouled it's relationship with Hillsborough County by failing to provide a current financial audit. That threatens to deny the Urban League chapter more than $97,000 in county funds to host a race relations seminar. A county management and budget department official was even denied entry into the organization's Centro Espanol office last Friday.

Friends, this is a mess. Stay tuned, because the drame will undoubtedly continue.