Children’s Legacy Center Part 6: Big Money, Small Local Services+
Written by Chriss W. Street
Mountain Top Times has confirmed Shasta County total payments from 2018-2024 to the Children’s Legacy Center for local youth services and foster care was just $898,907. With CEO Kimberly Johnson being paid $554,756 from 2018-2022,the relatively low local revenues reinforce concerns regarding the charity’s very high administrative costs.
Mountain Top Times in Children’s Legacy Center: Part 4reported the charity spent an extraordinarily high 36 cents of every donated dollar on administrative overhead costs.
At the time, we were under the impression Children’s Legacy Center was a key Shasta County Health & Human Services local provider with multi-million-dollar annual billings. But Shasta County’s detailed public payment records reveal for 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 that the charity had just two relatively modest revenue streams:
Children’s Legacy Center 2019-2024 Foster Family Agency 2024 Total 2019-2024
$660,869 $238,038 = $898,907
The Children’s Legacy Center may have received some other local funding such as Shasta County Sheriff’s Region 3 State Assault Felony Enforcement Task Force’, known as ‘“SAFE.’ But that funding is small and would not pay for much overhead..
The Mountain Top Times in Children’s Legacy Center: Part 5revealed that CEO Kimberly Johnson’s compensation for 2018-2022 totaled $554,756. We are not able to determine her 2023 compensation because CLC’s has not filed its IRS Form 990.
Sources have told the Mountain Top Times that Children’s Legacy Center gave substantial administrative compensation increases in 2023 and 2024 to CEO Kimberly Johnson, and former high-paid Shasta County executives including Acting CEO Mary Williams and Chief Human Services Officer Shelly Forbes
Director of Finance Michelle Robinson explained that filing a 2023 IRS Form 990 was due to accountants taking a 6-month extension to November 15, 2024 because:
“Tax preparers commonly file extensions for their lower risk clients to balance the preparers' workload over the course of the year.”
Mountain Top Times asked Ms. Robinson to release Section VII of the 2023 IRS Form 990 to determine if our sources are correct about compensation increases. We will update this report with any response from Ms. Robinson or Treasurer Erin Resner.
Therefore, Children’s Legacy Center big funding must have come from the State of California $11.1 million to set up dozens of group homes to import hundreds of the most severely emotionally disabled youth from 24 other rural counties to Shasta County.
Because Shasta County has its own challenges managing local severely emotionally disabled youth, there is no interest contracting financially partner with Children’s Legacy Center to import more severely emotionally disabled youth from other counties.
The Children’s Legacy Center has ramped-up staffing from 5 clinicians to 70 clinicians, including Clinical Director Dr. Alyson Kohl that signed a long-term contract at $130,431 per year. But the group home project was terminated after two months and big losses, following extreme youth violence against Children’s Legacy Center staff.
The Children’s Legacy Center has disclosed to the State of California that:
“we’ve faced cash flow challenges that have shifted our finance team’s focus away
from strategic planning and forward-thinking initiatives, instead requiring them to devote attention to “managing working capital on a daily basis.”
Children’s Legacy Center is changing their name to Arch Collaborative and merging with One Safe Place Shasta. The women and children shelter has been a successful breakeven operation since 1979, because their administrative overhead cost at 18% is half of the 36% administrative burden for Arch Collaborative.
The Children’s Legacy Center did get $7 million in cash from the Zogg Fire settlement that may have been paying for the high administrative overhead costs. But without some new large and very profitable state contracts, it appears that Arch Collaborative needs to drastically reduce spending on its high administrative costs.