By Antonio D. French
Filed Sunday, March 5 at 10:05 AM
PUB DEF EXCLUSIVE
In this video, Richard King, who has been the CEO of the Annie Malone Center less than a year, defends his organization's decision to move its nearly 100 year-old parade out of north St. Louis.
King argues that the parade is just a fundraising activity to help kids. "At the end of the day," he says, it is about raising money to support that effort. This is something that King also voiced last week in the Post-Dispatch, the St. Louis Argus, and other media outlets. But just what percentage of the organization's annual revenues come from the May Day Parade?
The organization's latest tax documents, obtained by PUB DEF, show that Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center received revenues of $2.7 million in 2004. Of that amount, just $180,493 (6.7%) came from the parade. After expenses, the event brought in a profit of $127,618.
This lines up with what King and other Annie Malone officials told this reporter a few weeks ago at a meeting in the organization's office in The Ville neighborhood. At that time, King said that the event did not represent much of Annie Malone's revenue at all and so it was preposterous for Committeeman Talib El-Amin, who was also in attendance, to suggest that the decision to move it downtown was about money.
Despite the profitability of the annual parade, the organization still posted a deficit for the fiscal year 2004. Annie Malone's expenses were more than $500,000 greater than the center's income -- and $450,000 of that extra expense came from salaries.
In 2004, the salaries of the Center's three top executives totaled $241,346. Add that to the $90,020 paid to Malik and Associates, of Ladue, for accounting services, and four individuals took away more than twice as much as the parade profits.
"It's water under the bridge," King said about the parade. He told a committee of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen that there is nothing anyone can do to change his decision to move the parade.
"Yes there is," Ald. Bennice Jones King replied. The next day, the Board of Aldermen unanimously passed a bill voicing their "regret and displeasure with the decision to move the Annie Malone Parade out of the Ville Neighborhood."
Since then, some northside residents and officials have announced their plans to boycott the parade this year.
Click here to see an earlier exchange between Ald. King and Annie Malone's board president Aaron Phillips.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home