Church of God HQ finances – troubling conclusions

ourCOG December 28, 2022 3:02 am #ourCOG 0

http://www.actscelerate.com/viewtopic.php?t=82090&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

HQ finances have been cut due to the TOT cut – and HQ assures us they have turned every stone to find savings.

However the Scot Carter investigation has uncovered some other troubling aspects.

Scot Carter made commissions on setting up conventions using an LLC. He then hired himself from his HQ job – then pays a roughly 20% commission to himself for hiring the real company to do the job.

And he didn’t even get into trouble for doing it that way!!!!! He only got caught because that wasn’t enough…and he wanted even more.

Which leads me to conclude that HQ is so out of touch with real world finances – and how you really save money – that they need to bring in an outside hire to show them how it is really done…say a guru from a “for profit” company that really has had to make cuts to survive.

Because you should hire in house guys to do your travel so you don’t pay travel agency commissions, you should hire in house guys to set up conventions so you don’t pay outside commissions – then – all that money stays in house.

I worked for a fortune 500 company that put on several conventions per year – with 1500 – 5000 folks attending – and they had a whole office to do it because IT SAVED MONEY!

However, when the COG HQ hired in house guy(s) to set up conventions – they then allowed them to hire out side firms to hire other firms – paying the middle man commissions the whole way. That is crazy.

It makes you wonder – does this type of genius exist in the other depts…

I wonder if insurance is bought the same way.
I wonder if computer services are bought the same way.
I wonder if printing services are bought the same way.

Are we throwing away millions of dollars the same way?

Hey, I’m not charging anybody with conspiracy here – and I know all the decision makers are good guys doing their best, etc, etc… but it begs the question – is Cleveland so out of touch with how things are done, and how you actually save money – they thought this was normal?

Again – these men are all Godly, great guys…I get it.

But I don’t get it.
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Last edited by Nature Boy Florida on 3/31/15 5:46 pm; edited 1 time in total
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3/31/15 2:53 pm

Re: HQ finances – troubling conclusions
Nature Boy Florida

double post
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3/31/15 5:46 pm

Cojak

I will never forget a statement my Florida pastor made. He had been in business before he was called to the ministry.

This was after a large church close by went under due to poor financial management. “Many COG preachers are good in the pulpit, know scripture and become great preachers, and are the worst money managers inthe world.”

NBF, I think you are right, especially on an outside group looking at ways to spend God’s money wisely.

(For some reason inthe back of my mind I thought they had done that a few years back??? )
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3/31/15 8:54 pm

Nature Boy Florida

Based on Scot Carter plea agreement – HQ quit receiving 300,000 in hotel rebates from GA … And it took them several years to notice????!!!!!!

How is that remotely possible?
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4/1/15 6:03 am

Eddie Robbins

I think it’s important to consider that there is turnover of officials/employees at Headquarters. I would be careful in accusing anyone of wrongdoing or negligence until all of the facts are in.
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4/1/15 6:10 am

Nature Boy Florida

I didn’t accuse. I asked a question. How is it possible?

You gave one explanation. Is that the official explanation, as well?
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4/1/15 6:57 am

Eddie Robbins

Nature Boy Florida wrote:
I didn’t accuse. I asked a question. How is it possible?

You gave one explanation. Is that the official explanation, as well?
I wasn’t saying that you were accusing. I am just saying, in general for ALL of us, to be careful in our accusations. People are reading.

I don’t know of any official explanations other than what was posted by the EC.
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4/1/15 8:08 am

Nature Boy Florida

Agreed.

The past is over.

But, we need to fix what is wrong.

My only worry is HQ doesn’t know what they don’t know. They believe they know the problem – but history has proven that they don’t know the root problem. They need some outside (the COG – with no connections to the COG so they don’t worry about hurting feelings) help.

And I hope they finally realize this. The good men inside have some blinders on – and they can’t see that their business practices are hurting not helping ministry… and hiring COG dudes and their companies is keeping them from getting the most for their money.

All other for profit businesses call many of their agreements “conflict of interest” – and it can lead to bad results.

Carter case is Case in point – hiring a HQ employee to set up conventions – and letting that employee decide who got the business screams “CONFLICT OF INTEREST”…but at HQ – it was standard practice.

I am just concerned numerous other monetary decision have the same conflict of interest.

I don’t believe anyone outside of Carter has any criminal intent – I believe most if not all remaining employees get up and do their best everyday – they just can’t see that they are blind in some areas.
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4/1/15 8:17 am

I think there is some cross-over here…
Clint Wills

I think that, at some point, we have to trust people. The Executive Committee can’t possibly be involved in every day-to-day decision and expense. That said, I agree that if we hire someone to organize a conference, then they should probably do it rather than hiring it out. But like you said, that company had an entire office. Is there an entire office to organize GA or one guy? Because organizing an event the size of GA with one guy is a bit unrealistic as well – even if he does have two years to get it done.
I think that sooner or later you have to trust your employee. We print Life Group booklets every month. I am solely responsible for who prints those booklets. I can choose whomever I want to do that work. Fortunately I live in a relatively small town, so geography isn’t really an issue, but the easiest place is not the cheapest…and the quality is the same. I could pay 5 cents per page 1/2 mile from the church or I can pay 3 cents page a few miles from either the church or my home…it’s between, but not on the way . I pay 3 cents per page because it just makes sense. If I had copied them at the other place, nobody would have said anything. I don’t own either store, and had nothing to personally gain. I just know that one month paying the extra $10-$15 may not be a big deal, but doing that 9 or 10 times a year is another $100-ish dollars…which is ironically about what I spend on Life Group leader Christmas gifts. OH…and I buy those from my uncle who is an artist. My point is that even on a very small scale there are gaps in oversight….or maybe it’s better said as trust in those you hire. The church trusts me to make the best financial decision in making purchases. My integrity dictates that I am honest in my dealings. If someone doesn’t have that integrity, then it’s not an oversight problem, it’s a personal heart problem. That dude sold everything for money…..sad. Golf Cart Mafia Capo Famiglia
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4/1/15 9:25 am

Nature Boy Florida

Agreed Clint.

Trust is a good thing – with people that are trustworthy.
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4/1/15 9:48 am

Nature Boy Florida

Guys,
I can see most of you don’t want to post on this thread – because you are afraid it will cast the overseer or head of business in a bad light.

I believe the overseer is one of the finest guys I know – and much, if not all, of this happened on someone else’s watch.

But if we don’t change something that we are doing at HQ – to the point of bringing in new blood – we are not really fixing anything.

I am sorry if it hurts someone’s feelings – because I honestly don’t know who it is at HQ (It’s not the GO – he surely has a business office that should have been reviewing the financial part of large expenditures such as the assembly). Surely someone had the RESPONSIBILITY to review the finances.

So one of two things must have occurred:
1) They were responsible and didn’t do their job for numerous years.
or
2) They weren’t responsible – but had a job title that would lead one to believe that was their job – and so that job is actually superfluous and should have been eliminated a long time ago. Seriously, 300,000 in hotel rebates from (more than one)assembly missing should have showed up on some accounting sheet somewhere. Can’t we all agree on that?
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Yesterday at 5:28 pm

Eddie Robbins

You’re assuming that this caught them by surprise last week and they don’t know what to do. I would suspect that it has already been dealt with. You don’t have to bring someone in if you trust the person who took over before last Assembly. I believe David Ray is in that position now. Are you saying he needs to go and someone else needs to be hired?
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Yesterday at 5:35 pm

Nature Boy Florida

Again Eddie – I would prefer not to know who it is…because they might be a friend of mine – which would make my thinking just as cloudy as everyone else up at HQ.

This seems to go back at least 5 years.

And it is obvious HQ didn’t know for a while. By their admission – they started investigating Carter only once they realized they were billed a 100,000 for an Oral Roberts event. So hats off to whoever realized that the COG had no business paying for Oral Roberts events. But there is a problem if that is what it took to discover this.

We must stop whitewashing so we don’t hurt folks feelings.

Some folks made mistakes – and I know there are always REASONs why you didn’t do your job – but we need some Harry Truman’s around here that says the buck stops here – it was my job – and I didn’t get it done – and rather than the overseer being forced to fire me – I hereby resign.

I don’t know who that person, or persons are, but I am sure everyone at HQ already knows who should have been watching the accounts.

And its probably a really nice guy that had good intentions…but…
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Yesterday at 5:45 pm

Eddie Robbins

My point is, they have already replaced the position. I don’t see the need to bring somebody in. I am SURE they are putting in measures to make sure this doesn’t happen again, however, NOTHING is fool proof. No company is immune to fraud.

Does the system need to be changed? Yep. The reason is that the ministers of the COG are star struck. They will vote for the latest, hottest Campmeeting preacher. To make my point. What happened when Jentezen Franklin became a COG minister? The ministers voted for him to on the C-18 and he didn’t even know what it was. He had to go buy a suit to wear. But, he is Jentezen.

So, if you want to make a change in the system, hire a CEO of operations and run it like a business. Good luck getting that to pass.
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Yesterday at 5:52 pm

Nature Boy Florida

Eddie Robbins wrote:
My point is, they have already replaced the position. I don’t see the need to bring somebody in. I am SURE they are putting in measures to make sure this doesn’t happen again, however, NOTHING is fool proof. No company is immune to fraud.

So, if you want to make a change in the system, hire a CEO of operations and run it like a business. Good luck getting that to pass.
Agreed (sigh)
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bad light?!?! uthdude2000

Nature Boy Florida wrote:
Guys,
I can see most of you don’t want to post on this thread – because you are afraid it will cast the overseer or head of business in a bad light.

I believe the overseer is one of the finest guys I know – and much, if not all, of this happened on someone else’s watch.

But if we don’t change something that we are doing at HQ – to the point of bringing in new blood – we are not really fixing anything.
…
Surely someone had the RESPONSIBILITY to review the finances.

So one of two things must have occurred:
1) They were responsible and didn’t do their job for numerous years.
or
2) They weren’t responsible – but had a job title that would lead one to believe that was their job – and so that job is actually superfluous and should have been eliminated a long time ago. Seriously, 300,000 in hotel rebates from (more than one)assembly missing should have showed up on some accounting sheet somewhere. Can’t we all agree on that?
ALL boils down to the Overseer/AdminBishop. BUCK stops with him and the Assistant GOs AND the Sec/Gen.
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4/3/15 7:24 am

NBF
uthdude2000

Let me say if ShaunTheFixer was to ever put <LIKE> buttons on this forum, I would have liked every post, you placed, in this thread.

HQ needs shaken and if this wouldn’t do it, GOD be with the beloved COG.

NOW HQ has gone astray from their ONECOG to the I’mNotGuiltyCOG.

In Love,
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4/3/15 7:31 am

Carolyn Smith

I really wonder how many of you have experience in working with large corporations. The COG deals with millions of dollars every year. So every department and every division has millions they are dealing with. That means that every year, those divisions & departments would do a budget and prepare for the next year. Then you have to get the budget approved (which doesn’t usually happen the first time or two, so you have to cut corners.) And every month, they would likely get reports as to how much is spent where. (At least, this is how it is where I work.) And the managers for those departments are accountable to explain where that money went. The buck stops with them.

It is a lot of money, but when you look at the multiple millions that they deal with, it’s a lot easier to hide $100,000 than we might think. Perhaps we should see that someone DID suspect something and reported it to the powers that be. And they reported it to the FBI when it was apparent something was wrong. And likely the more they looked, the bigger it got.

But to think that the people above Carter didn’t care about spending “the little people’s” money or were being careless isn’t really fair. If they truly weren’t paying attention or didn’t care, this wouldn’t have been discovered or brought out in the open. They would have handled it internally rather than bringing in the FBI. The fact that they discovered it and dealt with it, and let outsiders (the FBI) investigate it says they are trying to handle this in the best way they can. And I am sure they were consequent meetings that set things up to deal even more stringently with money to try to prevent this from happening again.

It’s a difficult situation, and rather than railing on our leaders that they allowed this to happen, perhaps we should realize that life happens and sin happens, even to good old COG folk. Not that this should be swept under the rug or not dealt with, but this is the real world, people, and embezzlement happens. It doesn’t necessarily happen because no one is watching the till. It happens because people are needy or greedy. And eventually, you have to pay the piper.
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4/3/15 8:03 am

uthdude2000

We should not minimize the issue…

because it is not 100K but over a million loss according to HQ’s report.

Out of approximately 12-19 million annual budget (depending on the year), the stolen amount comprises no less than 5% of COG’s annual net budget. You cannot hide 5% of annual gross without anybody noticing.
This is why we have accounting department and not double bookkeeping.

When a company on the stock market loses as much as 5%, the stock dives and the CEOs resign; regardless of the insurance policy.
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4/3/15 8:34 am

diakoneo

So, if you want to make a change in the system, hire a CEO of operations and run it like a business. Good luck getting that to pass.
Yeah Eddie, I think you nailed it with that post! Acts Enthusiast
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4/3/15 8:39 am

diakoneo

uthdude2000 wrote:
We should not minimize the issue…

because it is not 100K but over a million loss according to HQ’s report.

When a company on the stock market loses as much as 5%, the stock dives and the CEOs resign; regardless of the insurance policy.
I don’t believe the loss occurred in one year.
georgiapath

uthdude2000 wrote:
We should not minimize the issue…

because it is not 100K but over a million loss according to HQ’s report.

When a company on the stock market loses as much as 5%, the stock dives and the CEOs resign; regardless of the insurance policy.
You are absolutely right. Every check that is written and every credit card purchase made should have to be approved by someone else. This could not have happened if that had been in place. It’s called checks and balances. Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology
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4/4/15 9:26 am

Here is my question:
Could It Be True

Nature Boy Florida wrote:
Based on Scot Carter plea agreement – HQ quit receiving 300,000 in hotel rebates from GA
Why is HQ getting a kick back on hotel rooms instead of passing that savings on to the people who pay the bills?

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4/4/15 10:57 am

Re: Here is my question:
Carolyn Smith

Could It Be True wrote:
Nature Boy Florida wrote:
Based on Scot Carter plea agreement – HQ quit receiving 300,000 in hotel rebates from GA
Why is HQ getting a kick back on hotel rooms instead of passing that savings on to the people who pay the bills?

Rather than getting a kick back I think they should discount the rate that is being paid for the rooms initially. A lot of hard working CoG folk wear themselves out doing fundraisers so their pastor has the money to go to the GA and we learn that $300,000 of that money goes back to HQ, does anyone else see a problem with that?
Don’t hotel rebates go back towards the company being able to use them? Couldn’t that pay for COG HQ employees to use at other times? That’s not a kickback. Wouldn’t it be used the same way airline rebates are used? I don’t know; I’m asking.
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4/4/15 11:19 am

bigchurchmouse

I assume the room kickbacks were for the rooms that HQ was paying for to be used for missionaries and the EC etc. Someone posted that the money generally came back to the account that paid for the rooms. It is surprising that someone did not notice that the money was not refunded. That made the cost of the General Assembly at least 300.00 more than the previous GA. It seems like at least one person should have done a comparison of the figures from the past GA with the figures of the next one. Looks like rooms being 300.00 higher than they were 2 years earlier Same city, probably same hotels) would have raised a red flag for someone. Golf Cart Mafia Capo
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4/4/15 12:04 pm

Carolyn Smith

bigchurchmouse wrote:
I assume the room kickbacks were for the rooms that HQ was paying for to be used for missionaries and the EC etc. Someone posted that the money generally came back to the account that paid for the rooms. It is surprising that someone did not notice that the money was not refunded. That made the cost of the General Assembly at least 300.00 more than the previous GA. It seems like at least one person should have done a comparison of the figures from the past GA with the figures of the next one. Looks like rooms being 300.00 higher than they were 2 years earlier Same city, probably same hotels) would have raised a red flag for someone.
Wouldn’t that information have gone to the director of communications? The person in question who set up everything for the GA?
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4/4/15 3:44 pm

Eddie Robbins

Quote:
You are absolutely right. Every check that is written and every credit card purchase made should have to be approved by someone else. This could not have happened if that had been in place. It’s called checks and balances.
Hypothetical question for you:

An employee is in charge of making the arrangements for the convention center, hotels, flights, etc. He/she finds a travel agent to do that for them and for using that travel agency, the travel agency gives the man/woman who works for the COG a personal bonus check. Both parties realize it is not ethical and keeps it quiet. Can you please tell me how your checks and balances finds that?
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4/4/15 3:57 pm

Ronald
Ronald

You CAN’T !!!! Friendly Face
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4/8/15 3:58 pm

Re: Ronald
Eddie Robbins

Ronald wrote:
You CAN’T !!!!
Thank you. That took 4 days.
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4/8/15 4:03 pm

Re: Ronald
Nature Boy Florida

Eddie Robbins wrote:
Ronald wrote:
You CAN’T !!!!
Thank you. That took 4 days.
you get three different quotes – take the lowest.

If there are still kickbacks going to one person – then it doesn’t matter at that point.

You let the same travel agency always do the work without shopping them around – you are not doing your job.
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4/8/15 4:06 pm

Eddie Robbins

Again, hypothetical. If it the same agency they have used for years, they don’t have to take quotes.
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