Former execs haul in 317k year before they're fired from Modesto nonprofit

MODESTO -- In the year before they were fired, Denise and Joe Gibbs collected nearly $317,000 in salary, bonuses and other compensation from the Modesto charity they ran.

Newly disclosed IRS documents show the Stanislaus Community Assistance Project paid former Executive Director Denise Gibbs $100,383 and her husband, former Director of Development William Joe Gibbs, $216,312 during the 2010-11 fiscal year.

That included a $163,062 bonus for Joe Gibbs. Exactly how the nonprofit agency justified giving him such a hefty bonus wasn't explained.

SCAP received more than $20 million in local, state and federal grants during the past decade while the Gibbses were in charge. Concerns over lavish renovation of rental housing and nepotism in who lived in the units mounted after a series of Bee stories last year. The FBI raided SCAP's office and the Gibbses' house in December, and the agency fired the couple "for cause" later that month.

The IRS document reveals that more than 99 percent of SCAP's funding came from the government and that the agency's fund-raising events cost them more to stage than they ended up taking in.

SCAP finished the year with net assets of more than $14.1 million, which was an increase of $4.4 million over the previous year.

It had more than $1.3 million in cash at year's end, plus land, building and equipment worth $13.1 million.

The agency collected rents of $600,714 from its residential units, all of which were purchased with government grants.

In 2010-11, SCAP received more than $7 million in revenue and assets from government agencies, including from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, Homeless Prevention & Rapid Rehousing Program, Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS-HIV and Supportive Housing.

The charity reported providing $1,166,774 in assistance to 2,585 individuals that year.

After the Gibbses were fired, the agency switched most of its directors, moved offices and changed its named to Community Impact Central Valley.

The new management team hired an auditor to figure out what had been going on at SCAP while the Gibbses were in control, according to Jude Barry, the agency's spokesman.

'Best numbers we can glean'

That audit was used this spring to complete the IRS Form 990 — the annual financial disclosure document charities must file — for SCAP's fiscal year ending June 30, 2011.

"It reflects the best numbers we can glean from the audit about what was done by SCAP that year," Barry said. "We're reporting the numbers the best we can."

Exactly what compensation Joe Gibbs was entitled to has been in dispute since The Bee published a May 2011 story about his $627,331 compensation package for the 2009-10 fiscal year. Some of his bonus from that year supposedly was going to be paid over six years.

Further investigation by The Bee raised concerns over how SCAP had been spending millions of dollars in government grants.

For example, SCAP employees and their relatives — including Denise Gibbs' parents — were caught living in taxpayer-subsidized housing that was supposed to be for people with special needs.

In June 2011, after SCAP was barraged with complaints about how much it was paying Joe Gibbs, he sent a letter to The Bee stating: "I have chosen to forgo the $436,471 of the compensation that is owed to me" and that his salary would be a flat $75,000 per year.

No legal action announced

The newly released IRS document, however, reveals that SCAP paid him $48,070 in base compensation, $163,062 in bonuses and $5,180 in nontaxable benefits for total compensation of $216,312 for 2010-11.

Denise Gibbs was paid $91,054 plus $9,329 in "other compensation" for a total of $100,383.

The document lists as a liability $268,439 in "deferred compensation," which Barry said supposedly was for Joe Gibbs.

The Gibbses apparently want even more than that.

Joe Gibbs filed a lawsuit in March demanding an additional $496,000 in compensation he claims he still is owed. Denise Gibbs filed a claim against SCAP in January with the state Workers' Compensation Appeals Board, seeking compensation for assorted stress and psychiatric injuries.

Neither of those claims has been resolved.

Attempts by The Bee to get the Gibbses to comment were not successful Wednesday.

SCAP's offices and the Gibbses' Riverbank home were searched in December as part of an FBI investigation, and agents are known to have seized computer files related to the SCAP's government-funded programs. But no legal action against the couple has been announced.

Tom Shanks, an ethics consultant who has worked with SCAP since September, now is the executive director for the renamed Community Impact Central Valley. His annual salary has been set at $98,000.

Bee staff writer J.N. Sbranti can be reached at jnsbranti@modbee.com or (209) 578-2196.