When GoPride.com broke the news about the alleged corruption case against former CMSA treasurer Michael O. Rice II to the tune of more than $160,000, most of our readers wanted to know:
How much money is sitting in Chicago Metropolitan Sports Association accounts for Michael O. Rice II to take advantage of during his tenure?
Thankfully, non-profit financial information is public information.
According to the 2018 Internal Revenue Service filing by Rice, “Chicago MSA” Form 990 Line 8 reports a collection of $610,624. The previous year, it had collected $593,752.
It paid a previous year salary or other “employee” compensation of $13,315.
In that filing, Rice reported that he collected $5,550 in compensation to himself from the organization’s coffers. The only other person reporting to have been paid from the coffers that year was CMSA Board Vice President Matthew Herek for only $660.
Total functional expenses for the previous year was $590,135. $508,607 was from program service expenses while $81,528 was from management and general expenses.
Rice is accused of dipping into this pot of expenses.
At the end of that year, there was a balance of $107,428 sitting in the bank account before replenishment from members and grants.
With about 4,000 members, the coffer swells each year.
In 2014, the “public support” revenue totaled $619,025.
In 2015, it totaled $632,735. It was a banner year for LGBT sports participation.
In 2016, CMSA collected $625,305.
In 2017, it collected $593,177.
In 2018, the revenue stood at $599,875.
So, “public support”—fees from membership—made up 99% of what’s in the coffers for CMSA to spend.
In his eight years as treasurer of CMSA, Rice is believed to have pocketed over $160,000 by pilfering from these amounts bit by bit, small check by small check. But it ballooned to where he could not hide it anymore.
And then, according to CMSA attorneys, he tried to cover it all up when the Board wanted to audit everything.
He changed the names on check records to show checks weren’t written to himself, but rather to vendors.
Interestingly in 2017, Rice was sued by the State of Illinois for $13,120. A judgment was made against him to pay it all back.
Because of CMSA’s huge dollar take each year—dollars from individual people who wanted to open up their wallets so they could have fun on their free time playing sports—what happened with Rice is more than a black eye.
Their Board put an indebted guy in charge of their “charity” (the classification the IRS gives CMSA) worth more than a half million dollars each year, for eight years.
This crime is a full body bruising.
The Board of CMSA has more than a policy and procedure problem. It now has a trust problem from its participants.
