Why Should Delaware Care?
Delaware and other states have won $55 billion to date in ongoing legal battles with opioid manufacturers and distributors and subsequently directed that money to programs designed to abate the overdose crisis across the United States. But in Delaware — a state with a particularly serve drug epidemic — the use of those dollars had some officials calling for a pause in funding.
Two years ago, a nonprofit run by a prominent Wilmington businessman received $475,000 from the State of Delaware to help it build and launch an addiction resource center within an old charter school building on the city’s north side.
On Thursday, Delaware State Auditor Lydia York published a report stating that the nonprofit – the Congo Legacy Center – did not properly spend or did not sufficiently document spending for nearly half of its grant.
“Grant expenditures were not consistent and/or in compliance with Phase 1B of the signed Grant Agreement, [known as the Opioid Abatement and Remediation Grant],” the report stated.
The auditor published the report as part of a batch of audits that examined the use of grants from the embattled Prescription Opioid Settlement Distribution Commission. Those awards are derived from $250 million that the Delaware Attorney General’s Office has secured from multiple legal settlements struck with opioid manufacturers and distributors.
Separate from the audit report, Spotlight Delaware also learned that the Congo Legacy Center directed $220,000 of the grant money to a construction company called Max Con, which is owned by the nonprofit’s founder, Ernest “Sammy” Congo Sr.
Congo – who is the father of Wilmington City Council President Ernest ‘Trippi’ Congo II – also paid another $40,000 of the grant money to his own funeral home company.
In an interview, Congo said the payment to his funeral home was a reimbursement for renovation work at the school building that the company had previously funded. He also claimed that he hired his own construction company to build the addiction service center in order to to save Delaware money.
“You couldn’t get that kind of work done for that kind of money” elsewhere, he said, while also stating that Max Con only charged the Congo Legacy Center for the cost of its labor.
But a spokesman for York’s office said the audit concluded that proper documentation did not exist showing details of Congo Sr.’s payments for the construction on the West 28th Street building that once housed the Delaware College Preparatory Academy.
“What we don’t have is a contract with the funeral home. We don’t have a contract with Max Con. We don’t have an MOU between those organizations,” the spokesman, Sam Barry, said.
“We don’t have supporting documentation to show what that expenditure was used for,” he added.
Asked about the claim, Congo said records of his payments do exist in the form of the checks that the Congo Legacy Center used to pay for the renovation.
“All (the auditor) had to do was call for the checkbook and it will indicate every penny that was spent,” he said.
Money ‘well spent’?
As part of the audit, Barry also said that the auditor found that a $73,000 portion of the state grant did not pay for a program coordinator at the Congo Legacy Center, as was contractually required.
According to the grant contract, the addiction resource center’s offerings would include tutoring, music lessons, chess clubs, peer group counseling, primary care doctor visits and a food pantry. And a coordinator would be hired to manage it all.
“There was funding allocated for a program coordinator. That money was not spent for a program coordinator,” Barry said.
In response, Congo said his organization could not have rightfully paid for a program coordinator because the building’s renovation has been ongoing. He said the $73,000 was instead spent on “construction.”
He said it was money “well spent.”
“So we should have hired a program coordinator and not finished the floors and the windows?” he asked, rhetorically.
Congo also said that the $450,000 awarded to his nonprofit was not large enough to fully renovate the school building that had been damaged over several years that it sat vacant.
He said he initially expected to receive several rounds of cash disbursements from the state over multiple years in order to pay for the resource center initiative, called the Congo Tarir Project. He also argued that the initiative would bring resources to an area that had been systematically neglected for generations.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to help people and if this story will help people, well, I’ll love it,” he said. “But I don’t want it to hinder anybody.”
Last summer, the state’s opioid commission awarded the Congo Legacy Center an additional $80,000. But Brad Owens, director of the state’s opioid commission, said in an email that the grant had been frozen, pending the audit findings, which he called “concerning.”
He also said the opioid commission “will now review all options to address this matter.”
A year ago, the Congo Legacy Center was again facing scrutiny after the City of Wilmington sought to foreclose on two of its properties. At the time, the organization’s tax-exempt status had lapsed, resulting in Congo owing more than $300,000 in back property taxes.
But, on the day of the foreclosure, Congo saved his properties by paying a portion of those taxes. He also set up a payment plan and demonstrated that he had reinstated his tax-exempt nonprofit status.
Ultimately, his organization was on the hook to pay the city more than $236,000 over two years.
