SRJC Foundation board will reconsider $20,000 gift to mental health tax campaign
The Press DemocratOct 29, 2020
The donation was approved by the board's six-member executive committee, on which Chong sits, and disclosed inside a report presented to the full board at a
"It isn't about the campaign," Garrison told The Press Democrat on Wednesday. "It's about whether or not the foundation board should be contributing to political campaigns, period."
Garrison's concerns prompted a meeting Friday morning to reconsider the process by which the foundation contributes to political campaigns and the Measure O campaign itself.
If a majority of the board votes against the contribution on Friday, Chong said the foundation would ask for a refund from the Measure O campaign.
The donation amounted to just over 10% of the
The foundation was established to raise funds for SRJC students and educational programs. In a 2019 filing with the
Federal tax rules prohibit nonprofits like the foundation from explicitly partisan behavior, but some political activity is allowed, such as the contribution to the Measure O ballot measure. And there are internal precedents for the foundation's most recent political gift.
A similar situation played out on a larger scale in 2002, when the foundation gave
The foundation also contributed
The Measure O contribution was "appropriate and permissible," Chong said in an interview Wednesday, adding that the foundation can make these types of funding choices "as long as it has direct benefit to the college, which this does."
Measure O would generate about
"It would be wonderful if we were able have those resources, which we don't right now," Chong said.
The consternation over the contribution amounts to another rough patch in Chong's tenure at SRJC, which has been marked by falling enrollment and a vote of no-confidence by faculty members since he arrived in 2012 to continue a decadeslong educational career.
"I've always tried to do the right thing," Chong said. "Sometimes we get it right, and sometimes we get it wrong."
Typically, decisions on whether to spend the foundation's money on political activity go before the full board -- and that didn't happen here, Chong acknowledged. He blamed himself for a lack of oversight while noting that the foundation's executive director,
"In hindsight, we should have taken it to the full board with a vote," Chong said. "It's the right thing to do."
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