Letter Of The Day

It’s shocking that another taxpayer-funded director would get caught funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into his wallet. But, according to Clark Kauffman’s July 23 article, “Anti-Drug Charity Gave $315,732 to Its Boss,” that’s exactly what is happening.
Rock In Prevention (RIP), a taxpayer-funded, nonprofit organization, gave its director, Pat McManus, more than $315,000, $123,000 of which was salary; the remaining $192,000 McManus used to pay his own for-profit company for CDs produced for RIP last year.

RIP would be worth every penny — even the inflated salary — if it worked to keep kids off drugs. But a federal study more than five years ago failed to find any scientific data to back up RIP’s claims and also resulted in the federal funding being pulled from the organization.

Since then, the state has been the largest supporter of RIP. The largest private donor to RIP has been Don Lamberti, founder of Casey’s General Stores and father of state Senate Republican co-president Jeff Lamberti of Ankeny. It is no surprise that Lamberti pushed the state Legislature to give $600,000 to RIP. It is his father’s favorite charity.

Lamberti’s actions allowed RIP to avoid the usual state grant-application process — which likely would have provided the state with the information to make a more informed decision about its investment. Thirty-nine percent of the entire annual budget of Rock In Prevention was spent on one person. The Register knew this, why didn’t Lamberti?
— Ben Foecke, Des Moines.
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