State Auditor Edelen faults Bluegrass mental-health agency for executive compensation, lax management and board oversight

The Bluegrass Regional Mental Health-Mental Retardation Board, a nonprofit agency that gets two-thirds of its money from taxpayers, "paid more than $2.8 million in executive-benefit contributions since 1997 to the president/CEO and various other employees solely at the discretion of the President/CEO with no scrutiny by board members," state Auditor Adam Edelen said in a press release this morning. "The contributions, which are designed to retain talent within an organization, were largely awarded to a core group of central office administrative staff while health-care employees received either no contributions or less significant amounts."

Edelen's release said the audit, made in response to "news media reports and anonymous concerns," also "found problems with . . . spending without supporting documentation and lax management practices." For example, Bluegrass spent $172,025 on lobbying from January 2011 to September 2012 without adequate documentation, and President/CEO Shannon Ware, right, and a consultant "spent nearly $38,000 on credit cards during an 18-month period without detailed receipts to document the business purposes," the release said. The full report is available here. It confirmed several findings by the Lexington Herald-Leader; for the H-L story on the audit, by John Cheves, go here.