WASHINGTON (AP) – Republican seeking to become North Carolina’s first black governor mark robinson He attacks government safety net spending as a “welfare and victimhood plantation” that keeps generations of black people in “dependency” and poverty.
But the lieutenant governor political rise Without it it would not have been possible.
For the past 10 years, Robinson’s household has relied on income from Balanced Nutrition, a nonprofit founded by his wife, Yolanda Hill. north carolina The kids. The organization, which is entirely taxpayer-funded, has raised about $7 million in government funds since 2017, while paying at least $830,000 in salaries to Mr. Hill, Mr. Robinson and other family members. is revealed in tax returns and state documents.
That income gave the Robinsons some stability after decades of struggles that included bankruptcies, home foreclosures, and a misdemeanor charge for writing a fraudulent check that was later dismissed. Robinson said the financial restructuring provided by the organization helped him advance in North Carolina government.
“Yolanda’s nonprofit provided her with a salary large enough to support us all,” Robinson wrote in his 2022 memoir, noting that its growth gave him the freedom to quit his furniture-making job in 2018 and launch a career in populist conservative politics.
“I was either giving speeches or I was downtown in my wife’s office helping her with her work,” he wrote about juggling his early political work with balanced nutrition, records show, in 2018. He paid about $40,000. I stopped doing that. …Now my son does it. ”
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But as the battleground states reach their final stages, the nonprofits that provided families with a critical lifeline have become politically charged. State regulators in March began investigating the organization’s finances, citing years of financial irregularities, including more than $100,000 in unaccounted for funds.
The investigation adds to the difficulties for Robinson. He has already repeatedly made inflammatory statements, including calling former first lady Michelle Obama a “dude” and using the word “filth” when talking about gays and transgender people. It is attracting a lot of attention.
Robinson, who will oversee a state budget of more than $30 billion if elected governor, has denied any wrongdoing and called the investigation politically motivated. His campaign declined to make him or his family available for interviews. But campaign spokesman Michael Lonergan defended Balance Nutrition’s efforts, citing a regular audit that found no “material weaknesses” in the company’s 2021 financials.
“Lt. Gov. Robinson is proud of the work his wife has done to provide nutritious meals to needy children,” Lonergan said. “Democrats are using the bureaucracy as a weapon against the families of their political opponents.”
personal conflict
Robinson often speaks of struggle and redemption, setting him apart from the career politicians and wealthy influencers of the state’s capital, Raleigh. This compelling autobiography, combined with Robinson’s cheeky talk, has endeared him to his supporters. Donald Trump, endorsed Robinson at a rally in March. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee often refers to Robinson as “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
“I grew up poor,” Robinson often said, detailing his childhood as the son of an alcoholic father who died when he was in elementary school. He recalls “losing my car and house,” “going into bankruptcy,” and “losing my job not once but twice.”
“Like you, I don’t need politicians to tell me what to worry about,” he said, noting the “heart-wrenching feeling” of money worries.
In fact, from the 1990s through to recent years, Robinson and Hill have endured a lengthy financial battle that was more complicated than he typically tells voters.
The couple declared bankruptcy three times between 1998 and 2003 and did not file federal income taxes for five years until they were forced to do so during bankruptcy proceedings.
They left behind a trail of unjust creditors, including the Girl Scouts, according to court documents. Among them was a former landlord whose wife, who died of cancer, was shorted $2,000 in rent by the Robinson family, according to local news and 2012 case documents.
A bankruptcy judge threw out the 2003 bankruptcy case after the Robinson family failed to pay creditors as agreed in court. The case ended with Robinson and Hill paying approximately $9,000 of the approximately $71,000 in debt payments negotiated in bankruptcy court.
Lonergan called the bankruptcy “old news” and said it only proves Robinson has “lived the struggles” of many North Carolinians.
Nonprofit organization that provides meals to children
Hill founded the nonprofit in 2015 and quickly received approval to operate a joint state and federal program that offsets day care costs to feed low-income children. This program requires detailed records of operations and expenditures.
State officials found problems with Balanced Nutrition’s paperwork and were on the verge of placing the organization on the Department of Health and Human Services’ “serious deficiencies” list starting in 2020. The main issues were missing documentation, including menus, timesheets, pre-approval of some expenses and verification of income eligibility for children receiving assistance, according to government emails obtained by The Associated Press.
Another issue pointed out in those emails was last year’s $134,729.23 in expenses that were not accounted for in documents Hill submitted to the state as part of his annual filing requirements. Mr. Hill shut down his nonprofit in April amid increased scrutiny from state regulators, and, according to email exchanges, state officials said he was seeking “some kind of vendetta, whether personal or political.” He suggested that he is working on it.
However, the series of raises that Hill gave himself with the approval of the Balanced Nutrition Committee, which included his family, are well documented.
Although the organization got off to an inauspicious start, by 2022 its budget had grown to more than $1.7 million, according to tax filings. Hill will earn $150,000 a year by 2023, according to state documents. Part of her raise coincides with Balance Nutrition receiving additional government pandemic aid, some of which is available through the American Rescue Plan, a signature bill signed by the president. This includes a $150,000 grant in 2023. Joe Biden. On the same day that Hill disclosed receiving the grant, he submitted paperwork granting himself a $10,000 raise in accordance with the Supplementary Budget for Balanced Nutrition submitted to the state.
Hill also received a $28,000 raise in 2020, which was matched by about $57,000 in federal loans through the Paycheck Protection Program, which is meant to help businesses struggling with lost revenue due to the pandemic. . The loan was later forgiven, as North Carolina news site The Assembly previously reported. Balanced Nutrition received $45,000 in business grants for minority women in 2022 and 2023, according to state documents.
The couple’s son received a $5,600 annual raise for working part-time in 2023, and their daughter was paid $83,000 that same year, records show. The Robinsons’ children, both adults, did not respond to requests for comment.
Robinson himself appears to have been paid through a nonprofit organization in 2018, as previously reported by the Daily Haymaker, a conservative North Carolina website. He was expected to earn $42,000, according to state records, but the organization did not report the payments to him on that year’s tax return, which he filed as a candidate for lieutenant governor. It also did not report income from the organization on its financial disclosure forms.
As the Balanced Nutrition movement grew, Robinson campaigned across the state as a staunch fiscal conservative, criticizing government, especially under liberal control, as too big and expensive.
“The Democratic Party is the party of welfare restraint and dependence. The Republican Party is the party of freedom and opportunity,” Robinson wrote in his memoir.
In 2021, the Office of Balanced Nutrition will report specific compensation information for Mr. Robinson’s family on the annual tax form after Mr. Robinson begins his statewide office and begins receiving his current annual $157,000 public benefit. I stopped doing that. The Internal Revenue Service requires such numbers to be provided. Instead, the documents list Hill and her son’s income as $0, contradicting figures the nonprofit submitted in its filings with the state.
The campaign noted that in another routine audit in calendar year 2021, the independent company “did not identify deficiencies in (Balanced Nutrition’s) internal controls that could be considered material weaknesses.”
Lonergan said this suggests “Democrats are just moving the goalposts with the current investigation.”
But the independent firm noted that its audit is not the same as additional review by state agencies that issue grants and rigorously evaluate how the funds are used.
Balanced Nutrition’s accounting fraud is not the only thing that has come under scrutiny since the Robinson family first held public office.
Following the 2020 campaign, Robinson drew attention to how he spent campaign funds. Some expenses were the subject of a state ethics complaint that Robinson’s campaign said is still pending. Those expenses included $5,600 paid to Hill for “campaign apparel” and a rental car; $2,375 paid to an outdoor equipment rental company on a popular vacation lake on the Virginia border; and $2,400 in cash withdrawn from Robinson’s campaign funds for no apparent purpose the day after Christmas in 2019, according to campaign finance disclosures.
North Carolina law prohibits campaign expenses or unprovoked cash withdrawals of more than $50 for personal or family benefit. Lonergan said Robinson answered questions from state campaign finance regulators “almost three years ago” and asked government officials for a resolution, but he hasn’t gotten one. A spokeswoman for the agency said North Carolina law prohibits discussing investigations into campaign finance complaints.
There are signs that the Robinson family is once again facing financial pressure as the state conducts a study on balanced nutrition.
Federal and state regulations prohibit the nonprofit from using public funds, its only source of income, to pay for litigation. Earlier this month, the couple took out a $96,000 loan using their home as collateral, according to public loan records.
In his 2022 book, Robinson is more candid about his shortcomings than is typical for bombastic gubernatorial candidates. He has been looking for candidates who have “made no mistakes,” he wrote.
“I couldn’t find anything,” he said.
He then turned his attention to one of his favorite targets: the federal government. “The truth is, if you go to Washington, D.C., you will find people who have done much worse,” he wrote.
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Barrow reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writer Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.
