The last time the James E. Scott Community Association was on the brink of collapse in 1991, the organization's charitable giving was extending beyond the services it has provided to Miami's poor and elderly for more than eight decades.

JESCA nearly went bankrupt at the time as it spent generously on jewelry, cars and even a nose job. Its then-chief executive later died in prison. Now, JESCA has gone bankrupt and the focus again is on top management, particularly longtime CEO and County Commissioner Dorrin Rolle -- even though this time there has been no talk of criminal activity and the details, so far, are less salacious.

More focus, however, is needed on another branch of the organization's leadership: the board of directors, which twice now has failed to prevent mismanagement at the organization.

To its credit, the board, now under the leadership of interim chair Larry Handfield, already has made moves to reorganize -- not just management, but the board itself.

``It's going to be a totally new board,'' Handfield said. ``Because of this experience, you have to question more and you have to micro-manage more.''

In addition, a new management team is now headed by acting president Vincent T. Brown, formerly with Metro Miami Action Plan.

The new blood is a marked contrast to how the board dealt with the last management fiasco. Instead of using the opportunity to instill a new culture by bringing in outside leadership, it promoted Rolle, who had been with JESCA since 1972.

WARNING SIGNS

Boards are organic creatures, with mutating personalities and talents as members come and go. In many ways, they are at the mercy of management, which often controls much of the information the board sees.

Nonetheless, there were some signs of trouble -- publicly available -- that could have alerted the board to potential problems. It wasn't just Rolle's compensation, now widely criticized. At about $198,000 in 2007, it was generous but not completely out of line with similar nonprofits.

At JESCA, however, Rolle's plump pay grew fatter over the years even as staffing shrank. It also was more than double that of the next highest earner. Another troubling sign: More than half of the organization's revenue was going to pay workers instead of directly toward programs and services.

FILTERED AUDITS

Still, Handfield says the board had no idea of the problems that were brewing as revenue failed to keep pace with expenses. Audits were conducted regularly, he says, but the results were presented to the board by management, not by an outside auditor.

It took a publicly aired audit by a funding agency for the board to realize something was wrong: Program funds were being misused and some employees weren't being paid. So in January 2007, with Rolle gone, Handfield created a committee to ``find out in depth what was going on.''

It has been a case of discovery and damage control ever since.

Whatever the makeup of the new board, one thing is certain: To regain its historical standing and have a chance at surviving, JESCA must have a proactive board that responds differently than it has in the past.

After 84 years of serving many of the community's neediest, JESCA merits a chance to redeem its history -- but not to continue repeating it.

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