Small Business Committee (Kerry) investigation shows Veterans Corporation abused taxpayer dollars

[ProSense]

Veterans Group to Aid Small Firms Grossly Mismanaged

A nonprofit veterans group has "squandered" hundreds of thousands of dollars of the $17 million in federal funds it has received since 2001 and essentially abandoned its mission of helping veterans start small businesses, according to the results of a Senate investigation (pdf) released Thursday and reported in The Washington Post.

The National Veterans Business Development Corp. grossly mismanaged taxpayer dollars -- including lavish spending on costly dinners and luxury hotels, first-class travel, and compensation for its top two executives that amounted to nearly a quarter of the charity's federal funds, according to the report.

The top lawmakers on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee -- Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) recommended that the veterans' group receive no more federal funds and that instead the funding go to the Small Business Administration's Office of Veterans Business Development.

Abuse in Disbursing of Veteran Business Funds Found in Senate Probe

Posted by Raymund Flandez

A Senate investigation into a nonprofit that was designed to help veterans start a small business found that its executives wasted “hundreds of thousands of dollars of the $17 million in federal funds it has received since 2001,” the Washington Post first reported last week.

The probe found gross mismanagement and lavish spending by the National Veterans Business Development Corp., which is better known as the Veterans Corp. Taxpayer dollars were spent on “extravagant dinners, luxury hotels, first class travel, high executive salaries, ineffective programs, and other dubious expenditures,” according to a statement put out by the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. In all, the Veterans Corp., a federally chartered, nonprofit corporation, spent only 15% of its funding since it was created in 1999 on the national network of small-business centers designed to assist veteran entrepreneurs. Last year, it only spent 9% of its budget.

The results have upset Congress, and members are recommending that the Veterans Corp. no longer receive federal funding.

“This investigation made me angry as someone who has worn the uniform of my country,” said Senator John F. Kerry, chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, in a statement. “… Our veterans put their lives on the line for our freedom, and we owe them our full support when they return home. Certainly the more than 25 million veterans in our country deserve better than this.”

You can read the Senate committee investigation report, by clicking here.

With close to 200,000 U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan and hundreds of thousands more world-wide, the number of new veterans is expected to increase dramatically in the next few years, the report says. “Helping veterans start or grow small businesses is a crucial component of reintegrating them into civilian life,” the report states.

You can read the Senate committee investigation report, by clicking here.

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[TayTay]

1. This is completely unacceptable

Spending 9% of the budget on what the TVC exists to do is simply awful.

It's like Washington has been taken over by clowns. I sometimes feel like I am the only one not in on the joke. Sigh!

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. Its just gets harder to believe with each new revelation of corruption

that is in every branch of the executive branch.

Just imagine the Tsunami of whistler blowers and crimes revealed after Jan 20th
Sy Hersh says he has a whole shitload of people that will reveal
crap after Jan 20th. I think it will take years to clean out this cesspool that is our government.

[karynnj]

3. Here's another article on it

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Kerry-Snowe-Investigation-Reveals-Veterans/story.aspx?guid={64DDA6F2-7C24-4EDA-9EFE-4184203739B1}

It is amazing that in the last year they lowered there 15% actually given to the veteran centers to 9%. You can see why the American Legion and the VFW have stopped supporting them. This is disgusting.

I hope the change the Senators are asking for happens soon and that the CEOs are investigated.

[sandnsea]

4. Remember Noah's Wish

where the woman had the audacity to buy herself a car and was accused of misuse of funds.

I said at the time that there were way bigger fish to fry in nonprofits, and got attacked for defending a thief.

Well this is the exact kind of thing I was talking about. People need to think twice when they believe nonprofits are the answer to all our problems. Fraud can happen anywhere.

[beachmom]

5. Just disgusting. Like an AIG veterans care group. nt

[blm]

6. Yep - that's EXACTLY how Republicans look at veterans, just another way to get fat and rich

for themselves and their cronies.