Raleigh mental health agency closes after collecting millions
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- A Wake County mental health agency owner says she's broke even though her agency received nearly 3 million dollars in tax payer funds since 2014.
Lisa Stacey owns Family Legacy Mental Health Services and just closed the agency's doors. After months of trying to get her to answer my questions about the agency's financial problems, she finally sat down with me for an interview in her empty offices.
"I have absolutely no money at this point," Stacey said.
"I tried to do everything I did for the right reason and not only for the interest of the consumers but for my employees, but I obviously have made mistakes and take responsibility for every bit of it," she added.
We first told you about Family Legacy Mental Health Services in July. Employees said they had no place to turn after not receiving a paycheck for months.
Click here for information for what to do if you're having trouble getting paid
ACTION AGAINST FAMILY LEGACY
After my first story, action was taken by Alliance Behavioral Healthcare.
Alliance Behavioral Healthcare is the managed care organization, or MCO, that is assigned to manage public mental health services in Durham, Wake, Cumberland, and Johnston counties.
One of the agencies they oversee is Family Legacy.
According to Doug Fuller at Alliance, they imposed a referral suspension for intensive in-home and community support team services against Family Legacy. This means Family Legacy can't take on new clients.
Alliance also imposed a plan of correction and gave Family Legacy a notice of overpayment in the amount of $46,836.80, meaning Family Legacy now must return that money.
Fuller said this action was based on findings identified during an onsite investigation conducted as a result of a number of complaints against the agency.
Actions were taken based on findings that provider services do not meet requirements in rules, regulations, state policies, and clinical coverage policies mainly in the areas of staffing, timeliness of documentation, and billing for activities not covered by the service definition as billable activities.
Fuller also said Family Legacy received $1,753,340 in Medicaid payments in FY14 and $1,190,902.51 in FY15.
That is $2,944,242.51 since 2014 in just Medicaid payments alone.
The big question, why did Family Legacy continue to get Medicaid dollars with these employee pay problems?
Fuller says labor issues between a contracted provider and its employees are not subject to oversight by Alliance.
WHERE'S THE MONEY?
With many Family Legacy employees telling us they haven't received paychecks since March, they want to know what Stacey did with all the money.
"So when you're talking about you made millions of dollars and we haven't been paid, that's a problem," Family Legacy employee Monica Daye said. "This is the community's tax paying dollars, where is the money going?"
"Meanwhile, the clients, they are suffering because they come here for mental health (care), and they are not getting that."
Daye showed us the several paychecks she's been given by Family Legacy. Yet, they all have void written on them.
"Hard working, dedicated people. Sometimes people didn't even have money to put gas in their cars to see their clients," Daye said.
One of those hard working employees who did not quit despite not getting paid is Nadia Paloma.
Paloma claims she's owed more than $20,000 in back pay from Family Legacy. Paloma is a provisionally licensed therapist who is legally blind, and cannot drive.
She took the bus to work every day. Paloma says she was the only bilingual employee left at the agency in its last months. She adds every time a therapist would resign due to lack of pay, there were about 15-20 consumers left without outpatient therapy service.
"I'm committed to serving them, and I come every day, I take the public bus and I come to help them," Paloma said. "This is my only job, my only income, and I'm looking for the best interest of the consumer."
Something she will no longer be able to do, now that the agency is closed. Paloma is now looking for a job.
"It's disappointing and heartbreaking," she said.
WHO THE OWNER BLAMES
Owner of Family Legacy, Lisa Stacey says the money is gone as it went to operational costs and payroll.
"This is a business issue and not a mental health issue," Stacey said.
She admits that she still owes more than $50,000 in back payroll to employees. She blames the financial problems on a past employee, who was convicted of embezzling money from the agency.
"Before it was all said and done, we were several hundred thousand dollars in debt and we have spent this amount of time trying to dig out from that," Stacey said.
The North Carolina Department of Labor said there are 17 open wage payment complains against Family Legacy.
Besides payroll problems, our investigation uncovered a problem with the agency's taxes. According to court records, she owes $290,648 in back state and federal taxes. However, Stacey told us they've worked out a settlement with the IRS for much less.
As for moving forward, Stacey said she hopes to provide services in another capacity. But for now, Family Legacy closed its doors.
HELP IF YOU'RE NOT BEING PAID
If you are having trouble getting paid, you can file a complaint with the NC Department of Labor. That phone number is 1-800-625-2267. Here is a wage and hour fact sheet from the NCDOL. http://www.nclabor.com/wh/whfacts.htm.
If your employer gives you a check that comes back as NSF and you are having trouble getting paid, NC does have a Worthless Check Program. Click here to learn about that.
