Tag Archives: Jewish News of Phoenix

COMMENTS ON THE JCA’S SENIOR SURVEY FROM A CERTIFIED SENIOR ADVISOR

31 Saturday May 2014

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I have a much better grip on the responses I have received to this blog and I think it is fair to say that criticism of the JCA is like touching that third rail.  I have addressed my distress regarding this in one of my comments, and it is very sad.  I had a lengthy discussion with Ken Berger from Charity Navigator and he had quite a few suggestions that we here at the blog will be putting into practice in the coming months in an effort to encourage greater transparency and openness on the part of the JCA.  What is sad is that the JFED/JCA is not alone, there are thousands of 501c3’s that end up squandering everything and one of the common features about all of them is that no one spoke up.  As the Once-ler remarked in The Lorax, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”  I would not dare to compare myself to the Once-ler, but you get the drift.

I had a fair amount of push-back after my last touch of the third rail regarding the role of Ms. Friebaum as the consultant to the JCA who has worked on the Senior project for the past twelve months, according to the Jewish News:

“The Jewish Community Association of Greater Phoenix is in the process of conducting a study to help identify the needs of the Valley’s Jewish senior citizens. The next step is a community survey, which launches June 1.

For the past year, Janice Friebaum, a senior services consultant hired by the Association, has gathered information about senior care, including demographics and existing services for seniors, to help determine what needs are not currently being met. About 80 percent of the research, including interviews with a large number of service providers, clergy, agency personnel and community members; focus groups; and the development of the community survey, has been completed, according to Friebaum.”

My point was that Ms. Friebaum, who I am certain is quite accomplished in the many diverse fields she has worked in, has no specific training in this field, and therefore, given the executive turnover at the JCA with the people that Stuart Wachs has hired in executive positions, it is reasonable to question this particular consultant’s qualifications, at least on paper.  As an aside, despite what was written in the Jewish News, I spoke with two very senior Rabbis of two large congregations and they have never spoken with Ms. Friebaum, never met with her, and had no idea who she is or that she was undertaking such a serious task.  To avoid that third rail, let’s give the benefit of the doubt to the JCA and assume that these two Rabbis just missed their phone messages.

On Thursday I asked a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA) to review the JCA’s survey as my gift to the JCA to make sure they are getting what they are paying for.  I asked the CSA for an analysis of the JCA’s survey, which is available in an hour on June 1st.  The analysis I received was the result of a relatively quick review of the survey, not a comprehensive assessment.  More suggestions would likely emerge if I asked for a deeper study of the survey.

According to the Society of Certified Senior Advisors:

“Anyone working with older adults needs the CSA certification. Today’s aging population is growing exponentially – and the need for qualified professionals to meet the multi-faceted needs of older adults and their families is greater than ever. The Certified Senior Advisor (CSA)® is the leading certification for professionals seeking to supplement their knowledge and adjust to the rapidly changing age demographic by understanding the multiple processes of aging.  Earning the CSA®certification requires individuals to pass a rigorous exam, uphold the highest ethical standards, and complete recertification continuing education requirements.”

“What makes a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA)® exceptional is their application of the knowledge gained through the CSA Working with Seniors course combined with their professional experience. CSAs are committed to ethical behavior to benefit senior clients and their families. The CSA who builds their health, social, legal and financial knowledge in aging through continuing education and forms a strong network of strategic partnerships will act in concert on the behalf of the seniors they serve using a unified approach demonstrating the difference of holding the CSA certification.”

Here is the link to the JCA’s Senior Survey   http://tinyurl.com/lwjtm7g  

Comments on the JCA’s Senior Survey from a Certified Senior Advisor

While making a survey excessively long and complex can negatively impact the response rate, the lack of adequate questions will result in too little useful information for the survey to provide meaningful results.  As a result consideration should be given to doing some of the surveying by interviewing seniors rather than asking more questions in an online survey.  The survey in its current form is sophomoric and too elementary to provide the needed information.  Suggested additional questions have been added to obtain more usable information in order to formulate a plan to provide needed services for seniors in the future and to evaluate services currently being provided to local seniors.

Question #1 Your Age?

This would be a place to add data about how people feel about their health at their current age, asking if the person considers themselves to be in good health for their age and if the answer is no, then drill down to what their medical condition is, permanent or temporary, is it progressive and will they see themselves as needing additional care as a result of this in the future. If they answer that they think they will need additional care they should also be asked about time frames for additional care and contingency plans and their financial ability to deal with the situation.  Question #3 Current Marital Status, could be combined here and then ask the age of their partner and health status of their partner to get a more clear picture of the needs of this person or persons or family unit.

Questions #3 Current Marital Status? and #4 Current Living Situations?

This needs a drill down to find out if this living situation is by choice or only due to necessity and whether the person is happy or unhappy with their current situation.  If they are unhappy, there could be a question about what kind of living situation would make that better and what is needed to make that situation feasible (financial resources, etc). One could also ask if better options were available in the Jewish community, i.e., availability of Jewish senior housing in the community would that make a difference?  Many other Jewish communities have Jewish senior housing on the campus of the JCC, one of the best being St. Louis.

Question #5 Do you live in Greater Phoenix for more than 4 months in a year?

There is quite a bit more to know about this question.  One needs to drill down to see what may or may not change with that living situation i.e. will they become year round residents.  That way one can get a better idea of why they do or do not live here year round and whether that is going to change in the future so as to anticipate further need for services.

Question #6 Zip Code of your residence in Greater Phoenix?

The drill down on this question should include inquiries about length of residence in this zip code and plans to move in the future?  Another drill down should question the safety of the neighborhood the person lives in, whether the person feels stuck there and possibly unsafe?  Some additional valuable information related to zip code would be whether they have access to the necessary Jewish resources, the availability of transportation and whether the person still drives.

Question #8 What is your employment status?

There is a lot more important information to be obtained in this question than just a simple yes or no answer.  If people are currently employed it would be helpful to ascertain whether they are happy with their situation?  Would they prefer more or less employment, are they employed at a level that uses their skills and education?  Are they commuting excessively?  If they answer that they have been laid off and/or have lost their job it would be good to find out how long this unemployment has been in place and ask if they need assistance (i.e JFCS Job Counseling Services).  This question would also be a great place to obtain information about people’s willingness to help other seniors with their needs for Aging in Place, to determine what extra volunteer capacity may be available in the community.

Question #9 Do you have adult children? and Question #10 If yes, does one or more live in Phoenix?

Question #9 is a simple yes or no question which tells absolutely nothing.  One needs to drill down from there to find out whether or not there is a good relationship with these children?  Often, today, seniors are helping their own adult children, so the question needs to be asked, do you provide assistance to your children?  The other question that needs to be asked is can you count on these children to assist you?  And then this needs to be defined further in terms of on a regular basis, only in an emergency situation, financially?  Questions #9 and #10 need to combined into a question that drills down and asks about who helps whom, who needs help more; parents or children?  In this day and age a lot of seniors help support children who have lost jobs and need help given today’s much less forgiving job market and the existence of so many lower paying and part time positions than in the past.

Question #11 and #12 This starts a section entitled Caregiver Questions and the first question is a simple yes or no to – Do you presently have caregiving responsibilities.

At this point if the answer is yes it should add a question about the effect that this caregiving has on the senior.  Is the senior able to handle the extra responsibility comfortably or is it overly stressful and are they in need of outside assistance?  There are also seniors raising grandchildren due to their own impaired adult children.  Are these caregiving duties local or long distance?  Is this situation temporary due to short term illness or do they think it will be more permanent?  Does the person need respite assistance that they are not getting?

Questions #13 and #14 are the same simplistic questions about anticipating becoming a caregiver in the future with no further information asked for.  They need the same kind of clarification as questions #11 and #12.

Question #15 Begins a section labeled Adult Needs and Outreach

This is again an anemic section that does not obtain nearly the information that is needed.  The question asks what is the best way to inform you of programs and services offered for people 55+?  Before they even begin this question which includes email as one of the ways of being reached, the whole question of computer literacy should be approached systematically.  There should be a question do you own a computer and use email on a regular basis?  Can you use a computer without the help of your children or grandchildren?  Then there should be a check list of some major computer applications and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype, Facetime to determine if they use these or not.  The question should be asked if they would like to learn basic computer literacy.  Also whether the senior is able to  use a smartphone?

Question #16 Which older adult services do you currently utilize most or may use in the future?

The question needs to be two distinct sets of questions.  One needs to know what services the senior is using now and what services they anticipate needing in the future.  Also the question should determine from which providers they are currently obtaining services, how are needs being met, is it from within or outside the Jewish community?  Transportation is a huge issue for seniors and should be probed more in depth.

Question #17 What do you believe are the older adult service needs that are the most important for our community to address now?

Asks for the person to simply check off up to five items for what services are needed, without asking for commentary about the need behind the request and how prevalent a need this is in the community at large.

Question #18 Ask for thoughts or comments?

It is good to have a commentary section, however what could be more valuable would be a question about what programs, activities, organizations or institutions have you experienced in other Jewish communities that could be replicated here.  What were those model programs you would like to see in the Phoenix area and what communities did they exist in?

There is quite a bit more that could be said about the survey and what kind of methodology will be used to evaluate it, but this has been a brief critique of the JCA’s Senior Survey.

Well, I think that is all that we have for the moment.  Please feel free to comment, send in material for us to post (as long as it does not involve commentary regarding my mother’s virtue) and know that we are busying ourselves here with an action plan for the future.

IT IS TIME FOR THE JCA BOARD TO ASK FOR STUART WACHS’ RESIGNATION. IN THE ALTERNATIVE, FIRE HIM.

15 Thursday May 2014

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I do not know Stuart Wachs.  I have criticized Stuart Wachs’ stewardship of the JCA based upon empirical analysis of the JCA’s IRS 990s and the IRS 990’s from the previous JCC he ran. I have criticized him for a lack of disclosure and truthfulness about the Solar panel scandal that has rendered the project both costly and useless, for not donating to the JTO, while urging the rest of the community to do so, and for having Joel Kramer, the Chairman of the JCA, call me up to see if I had a hidden agenda in writing about their malfeasance and ineptitude with the JCA’s assets.  Most notable in Joel’s call to me was his assertion that “the masses” could not know about the engineering report I published and that the “masses should not know” because the report was marked confidential. Evidence of managerial ineptitude is not a trade secret, as I pointed out to Joel and Stuart.  I found it notable that Joel, who is a CPA and was the Treasurer before he became the Chairman of the JCA, told me that my numbers are wrong and that the Solar panels would not cost nearly what the report indicated.  However, Stuart wrote to me in a letter (that I published in this blog) that the solar panels will actually cost the community nothing because he re-negotiated the deal, and that there is an “opportunity for savings”.  Joel Kramer has a pretty good reputation in his field, so I am guessing that he is telling me something closer to the truth.  Stuart, who has lied to me in what he has written to me, has exhausted my ability to find him credible. I am aware that giving the benefit of the doubt to Joel Kramer on this subject is akin to trying to decide who was the better sailor: the Captain of the Titanic or his First Mate?

A quick summary for the uninitiated.  In 2010, the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix and the VOSJCC were finally run into a ditch by an inept board of directors who had overseen the building of our own golden calf, which is what I euphemistically call the Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus.  The Campus is routinely utilized by approximately 4% of the Jewish population of the Greater Phoenix area (this year the VOSJCC consumed 30% of the JCA’s funding allocations) and is comprised of a financially unsustainable collection of buildings that house the detritus of a failed Jewish high school, a poorly designed health club, a huge collection of costly and economically inefficient solar panels, the offices of the JCA, and several other Jewish agencies.  The JFED spent millions of dollars propping up the Campus that they built, and the propping up of the Campus contributed very heavily to the destruction of millions of dollars of donations to the JFED.  The inept leaders of the JFED who oversaw the creation of our golden calf got it into their heads that this was the apex of Jewish achievement for the Jewish Community, completely ignoring the fact that two previous JCC’s went out of business here.  They were somehow oblivious to this and undertook this new adventure with other people’s money which ended up in the same position.  So, after 6 years on the board, Bob Silver (who was the board Chair of the JFED in 2010) finally figured out the the Federation had a “structural deficit” as he called it, and decided that the only solution was to shut down both institutions, lay off half of the staff, merge them together under a new name (the Jewish Community Association), and start again.

Unfortunately, the board that oversaw this entire fiasco actually thought they were qualified, apparently based upon their previous lack of stewardship, to go out and hire a new leader for the Jewish Community.  This is how Stuart Wachs ended up darkening the Community’s door.  At this point in the story, it would be an excellent time to review an article that appeared today in ejewishphilanthropy.com entitled I Thought You Said You Wanted To Run Things Like A Business. The article is on point, and will take us to the next fiasco.

Stuart Wachs’s entire executive management team that he hired, since he arrived here, has been fired or has resigned, except for Alison Johnston.

1) Anthony Slayen – Vice President of Operations and Innovations – hired by Stu Wachs in August, 2012, fired or resigned in February 2013: 7 months

2) Kimberly Kur – Chief Development Officer – hired by Stuart Wachs in April 2013, fired or resigned in February 2014: 11 months

3) Jennifer Grossman – Vice President of Marketing – hired by Stuart Wachs in August 2012, fired or resigned  in April 2014: 21 months

Not Hired By Stuart:

4) Debbie Siebels – CFO – Seven years at JCC and JCA, abrupt resignation this week.

Executives hired by Stuart Wachs who are still in place as of the date of this article.

5) Alison Johnston – Chief Operating Officer of the Jewish Community Center, hired June of 2013.  This is a curious hire by Stuart because Ms. Johnston was previously at Ballet Arizona, and during her year there as executive director, their revenue decreased from 5.5 million dollars to 3.4 million dollars, a decrease of 38%, and their operating surplus decreased from 2.8 million dollars to $856,000, a decrease of 69%.  Another curiosity is that Ms. Johnston has listed on her CV on LinkedIn that she was the COO of Petsmart Charities Inc. for years spanning 2010 – 2012.  However, there is no mention of her in their IRS 990’s, which by law must list their officers and board directors, and Chief Operating Officer is an important position.  I just don’t think it was her position.  In fact, she was a Senior Director of Operations, which is a different position than the Chief Operations Officer of a $40,000,000 charity.  But she is not the only person to pad their resume, so in the interest of full disclosure, I admit I lied on my LinkedIn CV too and have claimed that I was a tofurkey fabricator at Akbar and Jeff’s Tofu Hut from 1981 – 1985.  I actually was employed as a marketing representative at IBM selling copiers, and I just thought it was less embarrassing to say I was fabricating tofurkey.  I am sorry.  But I do wonder what qualifies Ms. Johnston to run the VOSJCC.

6) Ofer Alphabet – Chief Information & Campus Operations Officer at Jewish Community Association – I have no idea what a Chief Campus Operations Officer does, but he has been there for a month and Stuart knew him from Minneapolis.

If Stuart is such is an accomplished manager and our great hope for the Jewish Community of Phoenix, how is it that every senior officer of the JCC that he hired has quit or been forced to resign? Turnover of that magnitude from his hand picked subordinates is a widely acknowledged sign of terrible management.  I suppose that we will soon learn why Ms. Siebels resigned, and we may have to look no further than the 2013 IRS 990, which is for some reason, not yet available.

I have excerpted the following information from an article by Ralph Heibutzki from a company called Demand Media.

Company Lacks Good Management

An employee’s relationship with his supervisor is often the most decisive factor in assuring his loyalty, according to “Forbes” magazine’s January 2012 article, “Why Your Employees Are Leaving.” Good managers who connect with employees are more likely to retain them, even if they’re making top money. Bad managers don’t communicate regularly with their team members, or express appreciation for their work, which makes them more likely to quit.

Employee Workloads Are Too High

Turnover can serve as a wake-up call to revisit workloads that trigger significant burnout and stress, according to a 2006 survey by the National Council of Crime and Delinquency. The council interviewed 297 former child welfare and juvenile justice workers, to determine why they quit their jobs. Sixty-five percent of the participants identified large caseloads as a factor in their resignation, while an additional 35 percent would have stayed on the job if their workloads had been more manageable.

Jobs Don’t Match Expectations

Thirty-five percent of 19,700 U.S. employees surveyed by the Saratoga Institute quit during the first six months because they don’t like something about the job, management consultant Leigh Branham states in his February 2005 article, “The Seven Hidden Reasons Employees Leave.” This situation results when managers soft sell a job’s less appealing aspects, asserts Branham, writing for the Center for Association Leadership. Once workers discover the truth, however, they’re out the door, which further aggravates a company’s turnover issues.

Opportunities Are Nonexistent

Opportunities for career advancement and growth play a key part in determining how long employees stay with a company. Eighty-five percent of the employees in the Saratoga Institute survey identified career growth as a key reward, but only 49 percent saw companies taking measures to promote it. Managers compound the problems by failing to praise employees who exceed expectations, Branham says. Staff members who feel devalued or unrecognized, in turn, are more likely to find an employer who acknowledges them.

Work Environment Is Stressful

A continual exodus of talent can indicate a stressful, unstable work environment of ever-changing job titles, workloads and supervisors. One reality of this situation is that some people lose their jobs, which doesn’t inspire the survivors to put down roots, according to “Forbes” magazine. This situation also makes itself felt through departmental turf wars that pit employees against each other. Faced with these situations, employees will opt to go elsewhere than stay in an unhealthy atmosphere.

If we want the best results from the JCA, then we must have the best people running that organization.  Unfortunately, Stuart is unable to create a culture of excellence and exceptional performance, and his hand picked executives have either left of their own volition or been terminated.  Stuart either has an inability to hire the right people, an inability to get along with people he hires, or he hires people who are incompetent and he has to fire them.  Stuart wrote to me and told me that it will take 3 – 5 years to turn around the organization he inherited, which might mean another 20 executives rotated through the management suite of the JCA.  In the meantime, the losses will pile up, the Campus will be propped up at the expense of the elderly and infirm, Jewish day school education, and helping kids get to Israel to spend quality time there.  Stuart will continue to collect his enormous salary, and we will be much further on along the road of destruction.  Keep that in mind when you are asked to donate to the JCA.

Rabbi Stephen Kahn’s Commentary On Rabbi Pesach Lerner’s Article In The Jewish News of Phoenix.

14 Wednesday May 2014

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Reprinted by Permission of the Author, Rabbi Stephen Kahn, Congregation Beth Israel, Scottsdale, Arizona

I am grateful to the Jewish News for printing Rabbi Pesach Lerner’s, “J Street Vote Heard Around the World” in last week’s edition. I would frame my response to his article in the context of the letter you received from one of your readers last week which seemingly disapproved of the Jewish News’ content. The writer’s critique stated that the JN is publishing “less meaningful content and more religious content.” I found this letter, along with some of the other critical letters you have printed over the past few months, to be ironic and baseless.

First, since the word “Jewish” is the descriptive word in the name of the paper, I am confused by the idea that “meaningful” and “Jewish” as either diametrically opposed or mutually exclusive.  Second, I believe the role of a community Jewish newspaper is neither to stifle debate nor to present exclusive opinions on the issues with a singular voice. If anything, by publishing pieces like Rabbi Lerner’s editorial concerning the vote by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations decision against admitting JStreet onto the Council, you have presented, without bias, one of the great paradoxes of organized American Jewry which represents one of the most “meaningful” discussions of our time.

Admittedly, I don’t really worry much about the Council of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations. Like many self-serving institutions and organizations in the American Jewish community, the Council is mainly anachronistic, and has no value or significance in my Jewish life and the life of my community. Furthermore, I would argue that most American Jews (at best) don’t know or (at worst) care, that the Council exists at all.

I would also add that I am not personally a JStreet supporter for a variety of reasons that I will not address here. However, while I disagree with JStreet’s principles, I fully accept that their members believe, with conviction, that they have something productive to say about the extraordinarily complex political, religious and sociological struggles of Palestinians and Israelis. However, I will not disparage their Jewishness based on their positions and, in truth I supported their acceptance onto the Council in theory. I also accept that this was not to be, and I agree with Rabbi Lerner when he suggested that JStreet’s leadership “responded [to rejection of the Council] with unbecoming condemnation of that same democratic process [which rejected their application for membership].”

But I don’t believe Rabbi Lerner’s article ultimately had anything to do with the JStreet vote but rather was an attempt to engage in the typical unabashed polemic directed toward the Reform and Conservative movements we have heard before. He uses the Pew survey results, to give his own sociological explanation while drawing on the survey’s results to remind us that all things Reform and Conservative should be painted with the same brush as the unaffiliated, intermarried and Jewishly detached – all of whom are implicitly undermining the future of the American Jewish community. He surmised, “Today, unfortunately, the ‘Jews of no religion’ are the fastest-growing Jewish group; they care little, if anything, about Judaism or Israel. In other words, for Rabbi Lerner, “Jewish of no religion,” and Reform and Conservative Jews are basically one-in-the-same, “both movements are shrinking, unable to predict where and what they will be by the time the next Pew report is issued,” he opines.

Rabbi Lerner’s socio-religious interpretation of the Pew survey as a frame for creating a polemic against non-halakhic (legally observant) Judaism’s role in the downfall of the Jewish community is not only objectionable, but ironically, the exact reason why so many American Jews run – not walk – away from the very Jewish institutions and organizations Rabbi Lerner’s is attempting to protect and defend.

The continuous attack on the bifurcation of American Jewish life which leads to the further separation of Jews based on the ideas of “us” versus, “them;” “pro-Israel,” versus “anti-Israel;” Jews “of no religion,” and Jews who are authentically religious is unconstructive and unrealistic. The future of American Jewry lies in enabling the 94% of Jews surveyed by Pew who claim to be proud of being Jewish the opportunities to engage, connect and feel safe when we draw them closer to the Jewish community.

Like many others in our community, I hope the JN continues to publish articles which offer divergent ideas so, as a community, these “meaningful” issues which speak to our future can be discussed, debated and argued within the pages of our community’s only Jewish newspaper.

8 Million Dollar Solar Scandal and Cover-up by JCA

26 Saturday Apr 2014

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In 2012, the Levine Campus embarked on a great solar power project that was created under the leadership of Bob Silver, the President of the Federation, during a tumultuous period when our leaders finally succeeded in running the Jewish Federation into the ditch. This was certainly not Mr. Silver’s fault alone, but according to the explanation given at the time, the leadership of the Federation just figured out, after many years on the Board, that the Federation had a “structural deficit”. There is a very detailed analysis on this blog in an earlier post entitled: Smarter Jews Needed, Or Maybe We Just Need A Few Decent Ones. A Salute to the Federation’s New Donors.

I questioned the qualifications of the leadership of the Jewish Federation and the ineptitude of their Board of Directors.  I singled out Bob Silver at the time and wrote:

Bob Silver should also step down at once. He has served on the Board since 2002, and if he is just now, in January of 2011, discovering that the Federation has a structural deficit, then I question what he has been doing as a member of the Board for the last 9 years. See article from Jewish News. Additionally, Mr. Silver was quoted as saying that they have done a very poor job in engaging the community. So, the next question that begs to be asked is why is Mr. Silver, a Board member for the last nine years during which this disaster was unfolding, now tasked with solving the problem? What specific skill does he now possess that has been dormant for the last decade? For that matter, the following board members, who have also served for the last nine years, should also step down:

Ann Zinman, Lanny Lahr, Joel Bernick, David Weiner, Sandra Scheinbein, and Barry Zemel (Zemel served since 2005)

In the January 13, 2012 issue of the Jewish News, we were treated to a story entitled Going green, which highlighted a a new solar panel project for the Levine Campus.  Mr. Silver was quoted in the article:

“This no-cost approach to ‘go green’ was perfect,” said Silver in the release. “We knew this would make a huge impact economically for the campus. It demonstrates to the 25,000 people that walk through our doors each month that it is the right thing to do financially and environmentally.”

First, there are not 25,000 unique visitors to the Levine Campus each month. That would equal 1/3rd of the Jewish population of the greater Phoenix metropolitan area.  It is closer to 3,000 unique visitors, but that is for another day.  Second, we were treated to another article when this no-cost solar project was completed, entitled Campus completes greening.  The article highlights include:

The green initiative kicked off about 18 months ago with a campus recycling program. In January, a solar panel thermal system was installed by Arizona Solar Concepts. The panels, located on the campus roof, are expected to provide energy to more than 70 percent of the facility’s thermal hot-water heaters, according to a VOSJCC press release. The system is scheduled to turn on at the end of the month, said Dae Williams, campus facilities director.

The next phase of the project, through Green Choice Solar, involved installing about 400 solar canopy parking spaces in the campus parking lot. In addition to providing covered parking for campus visitors and employees, the panels are expected to meet 90 percent of the campus’ energy needs and are anticipated to save 11 percent in APS costs, according to the release.

The renovations were done at no cost to the community, Bob Silver, association board chair, told Jewish News at the start of the project (“Going green,” Jewish News, Jan. 13, 2012). The vendors took advantage of tax credits, government programs and rebates run through the utility companies.

Here is what we were not told.  Instead of saving the JCA more than $6.6 million dollars in energy costs over a 25 year period, it will now actually cost the JCA more than $2,000,000 in higher energy costs.  In the first year alone, this so called “no cost” solution of solar panels that the leadership of the JCA was happy to publicize actually cost the JCA more than $120,000 in higher energy costs.  I have a copy of the report that was commissioned by the board of directors of the JCA and prepared by Energy Management Advisors, LLC.  Download the report by clicking  ILJCC Solar Installation Situation.

This is everything that is wrong with the JCA.  Instead of being truthful and informing the Jewish Community that they made a serious mistake by investing in the solar project and that there will be an 8 million dollar swing in the benefit projection, which will ultimately cost the JCA more than $2,000,000 over 25 years and has already contributed to a cost increase in their energy bills of $125,000 in the first year, they have told the community nothing.  I would say that higher energy bills of $125,000 per year contradicts the “no cost to the community” statements made by Mr. Silver.

I think it could be argued that the Jewish News has not done the job they are capable of doing and has done a disservice to the community by sitting on this story.  As a community newspaper, they must walk a fine line between appealing to advertisers and informing us all what is going on.  If the story was important enough for the Jewish News to run two stories on the wonderful greening of the Levine Campus, it was important enough to tell us that the whole project has been a financial disaster, not the “zero cost to the community” wonder that they have written about. The very community the Jewish News is supposed to serve is being trampled under foot by JCA management and the Jewish News appears complicit through the sin of omission.  The Jewish News of Phoenix sat on relevant news of this disaster that would clearly make people question or change their giving strategy after being pressured by the JCA.  They must decide whether or not they will a be a newspaper that informs the community of the issues facing the Jewish Community or a newspaper that focuses on appeasing advertisers. It stands to reason that people have given to the JCA not knowing what the Jewish News knew about this fiasco and more money will most likely be unnecessarily squandered.  This is unfortunate.

Circling back to the subject matter of my last post, this is one reason that 46% of every dollar you give to the JCA goes up in the smoke required to run the JCA.  Gross financial mismanagement, a lack of transparency and accountability, and the sins of commissions and omissions. If the JCA was a public company, these omissions would spark lawsuits and most likely an SEC investigation.  To ask the Jewish community to donate to the JCA, when their leadership is not truthful about their managerial errors and the true state of their projects to protect our future, is an outrage and a moral failing from people we are supposed to be able to trust.  The JCA is nothing more than a financial organization that can not tell the truth to people from whom they want to raise money.

PS – At the rate I am being sent information, I might have to quit my day job.