SCAP worker gives up $436K

In a statement released Friday, William Joe Gibbs said he has chosen to forgo $436,471 in compensation that was owed to him by the Stanislaus Community Assistance Project.

The nonprofit human services agency has come under fire after reports that Gibbs earned $627,000 last year for writing grant applications for the nonprofit. He is married to SCAP Executive Director Denise Gibbs, whose salary was $85,000 last year.

His one-page letter, which was e-mailed to The Bee about 5:45 p.m., said he was waiving the six-figure amount in hopes it would put the issue to rest.

"My contractual agreement was made with fairness and proper legal standards in mind," said the statement, signed Joseph Gibbs. "However, the distorted allegations and innuendo that my conduct, and indeed our agency's conduct, as related to the compensation package is somehow improper has simply created an unnecessary distraction for SCAP board members, staff, and most importantly, the people we serve."

Gibbs said in the letter that he had informed SCAP board Chairman Darryl Fair of his decision.

Fair wrote in an e-mail that he had advised Gibbs to relinquish the bonus for the greater good.

"In the discussions I have had with Mr. Gibbs over the last couple of months, he was anguished over the payment issue. No one anticipated that his grant writing skills would result in this," he wrote.

On Sunday, The Bee reported that Joe and Denise Gibbs earned more than $1.32 million in four years working for the nonprofit agency. In 2004, Joe Gibbs signed a compensation agreement with the agency giving him 4 percent of the assets and income produced by writing grant applications, on top of a nominal salary.

The nonprofit has collected more than $20 million in government grants in recent years, including nearly $9 million from Modesto since 2008. Grant awards served to boost Gibbs' compensation to more than $627,000 last year. Most executives for charities in the region are paid less than $100,000 a year.

The $436,471 is apparently what was owed to Gibbs after SCAP paid him $195,860 for the 2009-10 fiscal year. A number close to that amount was noted as "deferred compensation" for Gibbs on SCAP's January 2011 board meeting minutes, a former board member told The Bee.

In his statement, Gibbs said that "because that is an amount in excess of what should be compensated to a nonprofit director," he worked with the chairman of SCAP's board to restructure the $436,000 amount to be paid over six years. He also accepted a restructured contract paying him a flat salary of $75,000 a year with no extra compensation. The change in the agreement apparently took effect March 1.

Gibbs said in the statement that his compensation had soared because of the extraordinary growth of the agency's programs and funding received from government sources. When he started with SCAP in 2004, he had welcomed the challenge to serve the underserved after years of grant writing for colleges and universities, the letter said.

Because SCAP wasn't able to pay a commensurate salary, he wrote, the language was added to his contract giving him a percentage of income produced by his grant writing. SCAP's list of programs include housing assistance for people with AIDS, HIV education, homeless prevention services and support groups for people with life-threatening illness.

"I believe there is nothing more important than serving the underserved with housing, health care and human services," his statement said. "No one individual salary, no matter how legal or how deserved, is more important than that noble calling."

Last year, Modesto allocated $6 million in Neighborhood Stabilization Program funds to SCAP, with the money intended to buy and renovate foreclosed homes and apartments for people in need. That was in addition to $2.34 million previously allocated to SCAP from that program.

Gibbs' compensation from SCAP has raised questions about the city's oversight of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The Inspector General for the Department of Housing and Urban Development is investigating how that program's funds were used. The city has received $36 million in Neighborhood Stabilization funding.

Councilman Dave Lopez said Gibbs' decision is a step in the right direction. After learning about SCAP's questionable compensation packages last month from a former board member, Lopez took his concerns to City Manager Greg Nyhoff.

Lopez has said he and the former board member were interviewed by agents from the FBI last month. He hopes the Office of the Inspector General will look closely at how the money is being spent by SCAP.

"I still want to see what the Inspector General comes up with," Lopez said Friday evening."Folks are not happy with the fact he was taking so much money."

Bee staff writer Ken Carlson can be reached at kcarlson@modbee.com or (209) 578-2321.