The Conservative Treehouse – by Sundance
A few days ago we posted some details, and a large dose of opinion, about the latest misguided efforts of Glenn Beck’s “Bold and Sanctimonious Tour” – and a strange thing happened…. few, if any, thought our critical outline was controversial.
It would appear the Patriotic U.S. Sleeping Giant is awake, at least on this issue:
Is it really “charity” when the federal government is using the IRS to collect the “offering”?
What follows below is a little more depth on the issue of “Faith Based” organizations and those receiving federal grants to facilitate illegal immigration.
We have received numerous requests to turn the eye of research into exactly what these organizations are. Specifically, one group that is continually in the media stories when they describe “faith-based” organizations and subsequent assistance to illegal aliens, or unaccompanied alien children, Baptist Child and Family Services or BCFS.
“Faith Based Organizations“. Has a nice charitable ring to it, no? At least on the surface it’s a great sounding catch phrase. Such descriptivism gives the reader or listener the impression of “charity” in some form. At the very least, as Mr. Teddy Bears and Soccer Balls -Glenn Beck- has recently been espousing, they would seem quite, well, “charitable“.
Alas, not so fast.
Allow us to introduce to you Mr. Kevin Dinnin.
He’s the paid President and CEO of Baptist Child and Family Services Emergency Management Division (BCFS-EMD). We found him by backtracking the name of the principal officer posted on their 2012 tax filings.
Paid at an annual salary of $477,799+ I might add.
Not a bad gig for himself and rest of the BCFS-EMD leadership and staff who pulled in, and paid $33,000,000 in wages for 2012.
Yes, that is THIRTY THREE MILLION. In payroll.
You see, BCFS is two entities. You have BCFS and BCFS-EMD.
BCFS Health and Human Services’ Emergency Management Division (BCFS EMD) is a non-profit partner of federal, state and local government and private industry. Our organization specializes in emergency management, incident management, disaster response, public health and medical emergency response, mass care, medical sheltering and planning for vulnerable populations. (link)
Call me crazy but I thought that’s what FEMA was for….. oh well, I digress.
Now, at this point I’d usually link to a bunch of internal publicly available information aboutBCFS-EMD so you could cruise around and dig in for your own analytical curiosity. However, a strange thing happened while assembling this research; the site closed down many of the page functions during my assembly….. presto: “ACCESS DENIED” !
I’ll have to leave it up to you why they did this. But I can assure you the change in sunlight protocol occurred between the hours of noon on Wednesday 7/16/14 and 11:30pm that same day. How do I know? Because for the past two days I’ve been mining data on this organization – and the “Access Denied” only occurred after I had already been assembling the cast of characters and tracking down their tax filings.
For some reason over the past 48 hours “sunlight” has become antithetical to BCFS-EMD, or at least their “Leadership“. [maybe, just maybe, they’re updating? /sarc ] I digress, again…..
Baptist Child and Family Services, along with Baptist Child and Family Services-Emergency Management Division, are the recipients of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS), grant money.
How much money you might ask?
Well, lets just say a single grant this month was for $190,707,505.00
THAT’s a single grant.
One grant for:
One Hundred Ninety Million, Seven Hundred Seven Thousand, Five Hundred Five Dollars. $190,707,505.00
And there’s more than a few MORE:
And yes as you scroll to the bottom you’ll note that we are only half-way through the year and this entity has received over a QUARTER BILLION dollars. OK, now you’re beginning to get the picture.
Taxpayer dollars.
I’m thinking BCFS can afford a few soccer balls, no?
So what in the world can a “faith based charity group” be spending all of that taxpayer money on ?…. and how big is this “charity” if the federal government portion therein is funding it to the tune of THAT MUCH money ?
Well, apparently, other than “Federal Grant Work”, not much.
In 2012 they pulled in $67,325,953.00 and $63,321,669 of taxpayer funds through DHS and HHS grants/contracts. That’s around 94% of their entire operational “charity revenue” from taxpayers.
“Baptist Child and Family Services” eh?
“Faith Based”? Um, where’s the church ?
Now that CEO Mr. Kevin Dinnin has tripled his “charities” business with the federal government I’m pretty sure he’s making more than the $477,799.00 he was making in 2012.
Consider this Press Release:
BCFS, a global health and human services organization headquartered in Texas, today announced the expansion of its International Children’s Services program to serve unaccompanied foreign youth throughout the country. The new offices, located in New York, NY; Miami, FL; Houston, TX; Dallas, TX; Sacramento-area, CA; and Los Angeles-area, CA, will serve as regional hubs for BCFS’ new family support and evaluation programs.
BCFS will lead these programs as part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)strategic plan to provide safe and stable homes for international youth who are granted permission to stay with family or sponsors already living in the country.
“We are excited to expand our successful International Children’s Services program nationwide. Under the care and leadership of our new national and regional directors, countless children and families will receive the support they need to start their new lives off right,” said Asennet Segura, BCFS Executive Director – Residential Services Division. “As BCFS works toward meeting this mission, we look forward to forging new friendships and partnerships throughout these new regions.”
With this expansion, BCFS has named four new directors: (continue reading)
The Press Release goes on to note the hiring of: ♦ Celeste Garcia, National Program Director (based in San Antonio), ♦ Alexandra Peralta, Regional Director – Eastern U.S. (based in Miami), ♦ Kelsey Lebrun Keswani, Regional Director – Western U.S. (based in Los Angeles-area), and♦ Michelle Fuentes, Regional Director – Central U.S. (based in Houston-area), along with a brief summary of their skill set.
Those rail cars might as well be loaded with gold.
- Link to BCFS HERE
- Link to BCFS Press Release HERE
- Link to BCFS-EMD HERE
- Link to BCFS 2012 Tax Form 990 HERE
- Link to Federal HHS Grant HERE
Final thoughts: It is important to remember this information is only for one of the “faith-based organizations” you have heard about recently. There are many others who are in the same operational business model as Baptist Child and Family Services. For the sake of this outline we stopped with what appears to be the newest and the one everyone was inquiring about.
However, given the scope of the expenditures, you might be interested to know that, again according to tax filing records, the United States Catholic Bishops also received $69.5 million in HHS grants for 2012 (LINK). Yes, that’s $69,500,000+ in grants. And yes, that’s about 98% of the total charity revenue for the organization. And yes, that’s for the exact same type of activity.
Federal Charity courtesy of the U.S. Taxpayer. Is it really “charity” when the federal government is using the IRS to collect the “offering” ?
Hey Glenn, about those soccer balls…..
Why isn’t the Republican-controlled House putting an end to this madness. They could cut off funding to the federal departments that give the grants.
Oh, that’s right. Now I remember. The Republicans are as much treasonous whores as are the Democrats.