Anonymous wrote:NWLL Community,
In prior communications, we (and Board member Molly Quigley) referenced irregularities in NWLL’s finances, yet last week Quigley told the Washington Post that there “there was no evidence of financial improprieties.” We disagree.
Payments to Board Members That Clearly Violate NWLL’s Constitution and Payments That are Highly Questionable, if not Very Inappropriate:
1. As an initial matter, per our NWLL’s Form 990 tax filing (the “Form 990”), President Ricky Davenport and Treasurer Katherine Rossi are responsible for NWLL finances, which is echoed in NWLL’s governing documents.
2. Our 2022 Form 990 identified about $157,000 in annual revenue, nearly all of which came from you. Our Constitution prohibits compensating voting members (directly or indirectly). The model Little League International constitution prohibits any board member from being compensated (whether voting or non-voting), which is why we remain concerned that our Constitution allows compensation to non-voting Board members.
3. According to a “worksheet” (for the year 2022) prepared by Rossi and delivered to the Board four months late (and never delivered to NWLL members as required), fully 55% of our 2022 annual income was paid, directly or indirectly, to Board members Redmond Walsh, Pete Robinson, Davenport, John Sague, Sague’s daughter, and Emily Wander’s son. Davenport, Sague and Wander are voting members. We have seen little, if any, evidence of competing bids for work performed by Walsh, Robinson or Sague. We have asked for, but not received, financial information for other years, but the Board refuses to produce that information. The Board has even refused to conduct the audit it voted for months ago. We can only imagine what our equipment and fields would look like if we spent 55% of our annual income on pitching machines, equipment and updating our pitching mounds, for example.
4. NWLL has virtually no cash, i.e., in stark contrast to other local little leagues, some of which have hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash reserves. In 2022 alone, $35,200 of our revenues (20%+ of annual revenue) was paid to Davenport and Robinson for “Skills Clinics & Coaching Stipends (emphasis added). Davenport, a voting member, is being paid by NWLL to coach the 12U summer All Star team in direct violation of the Constitution.
5. In July 2022, Davenport and Robinson (and Wander’s son) each received a summer coaching stipend of $2,500 to coach that team. About nine months later, and only after financial concerns started being raised, Rossi relabeled and recast the “coaching” stipends as “advanced stipends” to “cover expenses … done at the recommendation of the Summer Commissioners.” In doing so, she added a footnote saying that the $7500 in “coaching” stipends were actually an advance for expenses “regularly incurred by the coaches and the challenge of requiring incremental reimbursement of each expense.” At least one accountant views this as an attempt to rewrite history and cover up a payment to coach. Here’s why:
6. For starters, none of the other 2021, 2022, or 2023 summer coaches were offered, or received, a “coaching stipend.” As for being recast as an advance on expenses, what expenses are we talking about that would total $7,500? Since there appears to have been no true-up or reckoning, and because summer coaches don’t incur meaningful or necessary expenses, it appears that that the $7,500 is what it was labeled at the outset, a payment to coach. Moreover, there is no “challenge” to submit receipts for incremental expenses, and in fact every other Board member must submit receipts (or provide the requisite detail) to be reimbursed for expenses, including incremental ones, just like almost all of us must do in our daily jobs. Indeed, for incremental expenses, other Board members are asked to tally them up and submit them when the job is finished, much like Rossi asked the Majors and 2023 11U summer All Star coach to do for paying umpires, i.e., tally it up and submit the expense when the season ends, which was done.
7. As for Rossi’s footnote saying the “summer commissioners” approved the $7,500 coaching stipends, that is not true because there was no summer commissioner in 2022. As a result, Davenport assumed those responsibilities, meaning he approved the $7,500 to be paid to himself, his friend Robinson and Wander’s son.
8. Also telling is that these payments were done secretly between Davenport and Rossi without presenting it to the Board, let alone for a vote. This is just another in a long list of examples showing that our President is excepted from NWLL rules - and why we remain concerned that he is treating NWLL as his personal business where he and Rossi control the purse strings with no oversight.
9. After reviewing our 2022 Form 990, we are also very concerned it contains inaccurate information and thus may need to amended and refiled. Other Form 990s might need to be amended and re-filed, but the Board, which is hiding behind a 12U summer All Star team parent’s interested law firm (Tom Trendl), has refused to produce them - or produce the waiver documentation that Quigley says she has seen. Indeed, just today, in response to Erin’s request that any waivers be provided before the close of nominations next week so that NWLL members can appropriately evaluate who they should nominate to the Bord, Trendl’s law firm responded that it won’t even be done reviewing the documents that we asked for until the end of October. Of course, that will be after the nominating committee of Sague/Davenport/Quigley closes its nomination process.
10. Rossi’s 2022 “worksheet” has other self-explanatory and highly questionable line items, like “$5000” to “Coach Pete” to coach Intermediates in 2022, “3325 Coach Pete” for a “Skills” clinic, and “$2500” to “Repetitions Baseball - Coach Pete.” Also troubling is that, over the course of less than two weeks, Rossi paid Robinson an additional $9000 to coach the 2022 Intermediate and Juniors teams despite that, according to NWLL Form 990, NWLL relies mostly on “unpaid volunteers” to coach in every division and during the summer. We have confirmed that all of these payments are well above market price, and even more if the market is $0 because we represent in our Form 990 that our teams are primarily being coached by “unpaid volunteers.” As a point of reference, a DCPS coach receives $2000 to coach an entire season. Why are we paying tens of thousands of dollars to pay Robinson to coach kid thirteen year old (and older) children who are arguable not even in little league anymore and not eligible to play in the little league world series?
11. Also troubling is that, for years, NWLL has advertised that Robinson is the “NWLL Skills Director” for all players in NWLL, yet every year coaches, primarily AAA coaches, have complained and alerted us to the fact that they cannot get him to help them develop their players. The common response from AAA is that he says “he’s too busy.” Rather, the Board pays Robinson $35,000+ to coach 13-14 year-olds, coach in the summer, and run a few clinics. The AAA player’s other choice? Pay Robinson for private lessons. As for Rossi, for years, her mantra at Board meetings is that NWLL doesn’t have enough money to pay for many expenses, yet we would be able to if we were not paying tens of thousands of dollars to coach Intermediates and Juniors teams. And why do even have this expense? We are supposed to be a league of volunteer unpaid coaches.
12. We have seen no solid back-up for any of Robinson’s expenses (or a services contract of any kind between NWLL and Robinson) or for other large expenses. Nor have we seen solid back-up (or bids) for any of Walsh’s expenses (or a services contract of any kind between NWLL and Walsh) even though Walsh received $44,554.15 in compensation in 2022 alone – this is over 25% of the entire revenue received for the year.
13. Also highly unusual is that NWLL allows Walsh to use NWLL’s equipment for his private business - where he performs jobs for other customers. This might explain why Walsh reported privately that Davenport and Robinson cheated and that Davenport’s written explanation is “bullshit” - but in Board meetings Walsh yells at the whistleblowers when they try to discuss the cheating.
14. John Sague, a voting member, and his daughter have also received thousands of dollars in payments from NWLL (funneled through privately owned companies, Sundog/Sunpup and Bean’s Tees). In just one year (October 2021 to September 2022), i.e., the only year for which Rossi has provided backup despite our requests for multiple years, Rossi paid Sague and his daughter’s privately owned company at least $5,500. Sague, despite saying that Davenport “definitely did something in my opinion”, has been one of Davenport’s staunchest supporters, which is why he is on the 2024 Board nominating committee (with Davenport and Quigley), i.e., they are handpicking the 2024 Board.
15. Voting Board member Wander, who also staunchly supported Davenport on every aspect of the cheating, has also received payments indirectly, i.e., her adult son’s $2,500 summer coaching stipend. For the sake of clarity, we are not suggesting that her son has done anything wrong; we assume he was led to believe that he was allowed to be paid to coach. Our concern is the indirect payment to a voting Board member as well as the payments to the 12U Summer All Star coaches, but denying that opportunity to all other summer coaches.
16. We do not believe it is a coincidence that Rossi receives financial payments directly from Davenport, including in 2022 when he zeroed out over $600 of Rossi’s registration fees in 2022 alone so that her family could play in three divisions (but only pay for one). This free baseball opportunity was not disclosed to all parents. As noted, the Rossi family also benefitted from being assigned to Davenport’s 2021 teams and his 2022 Spring Grays team (pre-draft) in violation of our local rules that allow Davenport to only select one player pre-draft.
New board slate: We will be providing you a slate of board members for 2024 for your consideration. We will not be on that slate. We will not filter it and will include every interested member. Please also know that you do not have to be on the board to help out. Winnie Stachelberg, for example, will continue to serve as the Challengers Commissioner as a non-board member. We have other good members who have offered to help out once a new Board is voted in.
Thanks, the AAA and Majors Commissioners
If this is true, it is absolutely stunning. Wow.
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