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Tuesday, May 13, 2008
By MICHAEL ANDERSEN, Columbian staff writer

The chairman of an embattled Hazel Dell nonprofit said Monday that his group will go bankrupt if taxpayers don’t put up $300,000 to cover its office lease.

“Within six months of paying that lease, we’d be done,” said Jim Moeller, chairman of the Human Services Council, which offers various social services to seniors and disabled people and their caregivers.

In 2005, the agency signed a five-year, $24,375-a-month lease for a 15,000-foot office suite on Northeast 73rd Street.

Last month, the state’s Department of Social and Health Services won approval to strip a multimillion-dollar contract from the HSC, effective July 1.

The state and federal governments agreed that the council had been flouting state rules about organizational structure and fiscal policies. The council’s board voted last week not to appeal that decision.

The services that the state plans to remove from the council — known as the Southwest Washington Agency on Aging — take up about 10,000 square feet of office space, according to Penny Black, SWAA’s new state-appointed interim director.

Black said the state is shopping around town for new office space for SWAA.

That’s left the Human Services Council on the hook for the current lease, Moeller said.

If it goes bankrupt, the work it now does — such as giving people rides to the hospital and recruiting volunteers for other local groups — would presumably be done by other groups, Moeller said.

Federal and state contracts pay for parts of those services, but not all of them.

Both Black and Moeller said they’re aiming for no interruption of services when the council loses control of the aging programs on July 1.

The council has hired an accountant to help negotiate the lease payments and other issues, such as ownership of the office equipment.

Black said Monday that the council has the ability to sublet its free office space.

Moeller said that seems unlikely.

“The entire building has remained vacant except for us in the last two years,” Moeller said. “(It) doesn’t look good.”

Moeller is also a state representative in the 49th Legislative District, which includes much of southwest Clark County.

Michael Andersen covers Clark County: michael.andersen@columbian.com or 360-735-4508.