The East Bluff Neighborhood Housing Service’s (EBNHS) status as an Illinois corporation is “not good standing,” according to the Illinois Secretary of State’s website. That means the not-for-profit corporation is past due in filing their annual report and paying the related filing fee. The report was due March 1.
EBNHS Board member Tom Stone said he believes there has been a delay in filing the necessary paperwork due to the organization’s annual audit being conducted, but referred me to the group’s Executive Director, Peggy Shadid, for an official comment. Shadid said the accountant has finished preparing the annual report and she (Shadid) will be sending it in to the state.
What’s interesting is that the state doesn’t appear to require an annual financial report, but rather this form, available from the Secretary of State’s website, which simply asks for the names and addresses of the corporation’s officers and directors, and can even be filed online. The filing fee is $10. The EBNHS has been incorporated since 1986 and, presumably, required to file these annual reports for up to 25 years.
City Attorney Randy Ray said that the EBNHS’s failure to file their annual report with the state in a timely manner was “not a big deal,” but did add that they should remedy the situation as soon as possible. Both he and the Secretary of State’s office said that, once the report is filed, the organization’s status will be restored to “good standing” once again.
Missing this deadline might be a small matter except for the fact that this organization has a history of poor record-keeping and lack of transparency, which resulted in quite a bit of controversy when its revenue source came up for renewal a year ago. Since then, the group has been trying to improve its image and regain the trust of its East Bluff neighbors.
The EBNHS gets its funding from an extra tax that is levied on properties within the EBNHS Special Service District area. The annual levy amounts to roughly $67,000. Starting in 2010, the City Council decided to vote on collection and distribution of that tax revenue on a year-by-year basis, “to assure all required reporting was complete,” Councilman Tim Riggenbach explained at a March 23, 2010 council meeting. Riggenbach did not immediately return a call for comment.