Council Member In Funding Flap
Bronx City Council member Maria Del Carmen Arroyo has a unique way to get taxpayer support for her family.
Last year she sponsored $82,500 in Council “discretionary funds” into a nonprofit that employed both her sister and nephew, the Daily News has learned.
Arroyo’s sister, Iris, was “fiscal officer” for the South Bronx Community Corp., where a former employee accused her of incompetence that led to thousands of dollars of federal liens filed against the group.
Iris Arroyo’s son, Richard Izquierdo, was also listed as an executive at the agency; he claims he’s not paid.
The Arroyos’ arrangement comes as the feds charged two staffers of City Council member Kendall Stewart on Wednesday with embezzling discretionary funds through their nonprofit.
No one has been charged with a crime in the funding of the nonprofit that employed Arroyo’s relatives, and Stewart himself has not been charged with a crime.
Each City Council member is given a set amount to spend annually on “discretionary” items that are usually pet nonprofit causes within their districts.
Stewart’s aides were charged with siphoning off $145,000 in such funds through a nonprofit he funded.
Council member Arroyo is the former director of South Bronx Community Corp., which purports to “provide various services to the elderly, disabled and low income families” in the Bronx. Her mother, Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo, was director of the nonprofit years before.
In her Council biography, the younger Arroyo claims to have been a “volunteer” at South Bronx, though records show her collecting $33,000 to $45,000 a year in 2001 and 2002.
She left the nonprofit after being elected to the Council in February 2005. Early last year, she was co-sponsor of a $75,000 “member item” and sole sponsor of a $7,500 member item for South Bronx Community Corp., records show.
Arroyo confirmed Wednesday she’d sponsored the money for the group, but insisted it was allocated only after her sister, Iris, and Iris’ son, Richard, had left.
“I know that when the Council discretionary funds were allocated, I know that they were no longer there,” she said.
Nevertheless, she couldn’t say when her sister left. As of February 2007, Iris Arroyo was signing tax documents as the group’s “fiscal officer,” records show.
Also the group received $50,000 in discretionary funds in 2006, although at the time sponsors were not publicly listed. Read more..
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