Hypocrisy as Private Inurement and Excess Benefit.

If you told me that former confederates in North Carolina were about to elect their first black governor, I would drink a toast.  If you added that North Carolina’s potential first black governor condemned the Trump verdict as “rigged,” I might lose a little enthusiasm but chalk it off as just more political “pimply white posterior kissing.”  That phrase uttered by Jimmy Kimmel on late night TV last week, by the way.  I would still celebrate the first.  I would even hold my nose if you told me the presumptive first campaigns on dismantling of the safety net that he says re-enslaves us po’ black folk.  Alright dude, say what you need to get elected, I ain’t mad.  Just don’t act so happy saying it, butt kisser.

But now I hear tell that all the while the presumptive first and his kinfolk have been suckled from the bountiful taxpayer-funded breast of a tax-exempt organization.  Ok, now this where we’re gonna have a problem.  I gotta draw a line somewhere.  Politics is one thing, nonprofit exploitation – private inurement and excess benefit, it sounds like in this case – is another. There is even slight suggestion that the nonprofit funded the anointed man of color’s (his colors are red, black, and green, apparently) political career but I don’t talk about that here. Just the hypocrisy of private inurement.  From the AP:  

In his bid to become North Carolina’s first Black governor, Republican Mark Robinson assails government safety net spending as a “plantation of welfare and victimhood” that has mired generations of Black people in “dependency” and poverty.  . . . “The Democratic Party is the party of welfare checks and dependency. The Republican Party is the party of freedom and opportunity,” Robinson wrote in his memoir.

But the lieutenant governor’s political rise wouldn’t have been possible without it. Over the past decade, Robinson’s household has relied on income from Balanced Nutrition Inc., a nonprofit founded by his wife, Yolanda Hill, that administered a free lunch program for North Carolina children. The organization, funded entirely by taxpayers, has collected roughly $7 million in government funding since 2017, while paying out at least $830,000 in salaries to Hill, Robinson and other members of their family, tax filings and state documents show.

Bruh!!!!! What are you doing? Get with some prostitutes, pay hush money, incite an insurrection why don’t you! Hell, shoot somebody on Fifth avenue in broad daylight, even. I don’t care. But don’t go getting involved with private inurement and excess benefit.  Damn you!  This might set us back 30 years.  And now, according to the AP, the state auditor is getting involved.  Here is more of the hypocrisy that likely precludes tax exemption and might cost us all another first. 

Hill founded her nonprofit in 2015 and soon gained approval to administer a joint state and federal program that reimburses day cares for feeding low-income children. The program requires detailed records of operations and spending. Starting in 2020, state officials noticed problems with Balanced Nutrition’s paperwork and nearly placed the organization on the Department of Health and Human Services “seriously deficient” list. A major issue, according to government emails obtained by The Associated Press, was a lack of documentation: missing menus, timesheets, prior approval for some expenses and confirmation of income eligibility for children receiving aid.

Another issue flagged in those emails: $134,729.23 in spending from last year that was not explained in documents Hill submitted to the state as part of annually required paperwork. As state regulators ramped up scrutiny, Hill moved in April to shutter her nonprofit while suggesting that state officials were pursuing “some type of vendetta, be it personal or political,” according to her email correspondence.

The most boneheaded part of all this is that in approving salaries and raises for the presumptive first lady — she was CEO of the nonprofit — they fit even fumbled on the safe harbor provided in 53.4958-5. The presumptive first lady packed the board with her own doggone family members. Who then approved the raises, I mean c’mon. Doggonit, the fault here is so easy and obvious I can’t even use it as an exam hypothetical.  Except the raises have been relatively modest in absolute terms, so maybe even without the safe harbor, the facts might make a good exam question.

Another potential exam tidbit is that that the presumptive first lady received a raise each time the nonprofit got more government funding. That same government that got the rest of us stuck on the plantation, by the way.  The raises were all reasonable, remember.  Now that makes a good hypothetical to talk about implicit private inurement.  If the raises happened regularly enough and always coincided with new revenue, does it amount to revenue sharing? And does revenue sharing constitute private inurement or excess benefit if the end result is “reasonable.”  Those are issues I expect would be spotted on an exam maybe. So at least something good might come out of this boneheaded private inurement.  Here is more of the reporting raising those interesting classroom and maybe courtroom questions:  

Documented clearly, though, is a series of raises Hill gave herself with the blessing of a Balanced Nutrition board that included her family members.  Though the organization had an inauspicious start, by 2022 its budget topped $1.7 million, tax filings show. By 2023, Hill earned $150,000 a year, according to state documents. Some of her raises coincided with Balanced Nutrition receiving additional government pandemic aid, including a $150,000 grant in 2023 that was made possible through the American Rescue Plan — signature legislation signed into law by President Joe Biden. On the same day she disclosed receiving the grant, Hill submitted paperwork giving herself a $10,000 raise, according to a revised budget for Balanced Nutrition that was submitted to the state.

Hill also took a $28,000 raise in 2020 that coincided with about $57,000 in federal loans through the Paycheck Protection Program, intended to help businesses struggling with lost revenue during the pandemic. The loans, which were later forgiven, were previously reported by The Assembly, a North Carolina news site. Balanced Nutrition received $45,000 in minority women in business grants between 2022 and 2023, according to state documents.

Records also show a $5,600-a-year raise given to the couple’s son in 2023 for his part-time work, while their daughter was paid $83,000 that year. The Robinson’s children, who are both adults, did not respond to requests for comment.

Robinson himself appears to have been paid through the nonprofit in 2018, as previously reported by The Daily Haymaker, a conservative North Carolina website. State records show he was slated to earn $42,000, though the organization did not report paying him on their tax filing that year, and he did not report making income from the organization on financial disclosure forms he filed as a candidate for lieutenant governor.

darryll k. jones