Man Up, which has ties to Gallison, loses grants - News - providencejournal.

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Man Up, which has ties to Gallison, loses grants

By Tom Mooney
Journal Staff Writer
Posted May 6, 2016 at 8:36 PM
Updated May 6, 2016 at 9:58 PM
PROVIDENCE — On Friday, a day after the state suspended major funding for her agency, Rhonda
Price, CEO of Man Up, Inc., was still working — just down the hall from the darkened door of
another nonprofit, run by a now resigned lawmaker under investigation, whose connection to
Price has left her in financial limbo.

Price, of East Providence, and former House Finance Chairman Raymond Gallison Jr., of Bristol,
both keep small offices on the fourth floor of the University of Rhode Island’s downtown
continuing education building.

Gallison runs Alternative Educational Programming (AEP) Inc., established in 2001. In a grant
invoice filed last July with the office of post-secondary education, he described a developing
relationship with Man Up as a “partnership” serving a similar clientele of disadvantaged minority
men needing vocational training, jobs and assistance getting into community college.

That same month, in support of Man Up’s efforts, AEP gave its hallway neighbor $28,580,
according to a legislative grant application Price filed last year.

Man Up and AEP also share something else: each have been receiving legislative community
service grants approved by Gallison’s House Finance Committee. In Man Up’s case, it is $30,000
this fiscal year. AEP was given $70,875 and since 2003 has received more than $2.2 million under
the grant program.

On Tuesday, Gallison abruptly resigned the District 69 seat he has held for seven terms amid a still
undisclosed federal and state criminal investigation. Sources have said it involved prostitution.
House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello has said that, after talking with Gallison on May 1, it was his

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Man Up, which has ties to Gallison, loses grants - News - providencejournal.com - Providence, RI 7/4/20, 5)26 PM

impression the investigation involved personal or business finances. Gallision has made no public
comment on his resignation.

The disclosure of an investigation has renewed an angry chorus of questions surrounding the
practice of taxpayer-supported state grants to nonprofit organizations. In 2007, Gallison agreed to
pay a $6,000 fine to the state Ethics Commission for not disclosing his AEP connection on three
years of financial disclosure reports, beginning in 2000.

In light of the still cloudy relationship between Man Up and AEP, state labor officials on Thursday
halted the remaining $164,201 from two work-training grants earmarked for Man Up this year.
(The agency has already received $77,193 from those grants.)

Scott R. Jensen, director of the state Department of Labor and Training, explained in a meeting
with Price that the move was made out of an abundance of caution.

According to DLT spokesman Mike Healey, Jensen told Price he wanted to avoid “even the
appearance of impropriety and he wanted to let Rhonda know that in order to do that, DLT was
going to suspend payments, conduct an audit, and establish the facts about the relationship
between Man Up and AEP.”

The suspension was to “protect both public money and Man Up.”

On Friday, the City of Pawtucket also asked the DLT to audit the money it had given to Man Up.

Dylan Zelazo, chief of staff for Mayor Donald Grebien, said Pawtucket gave Man Up $15,000 from
a federal Community Development Block Grant last year, and $10,000 this year, and has proposed
giving the agency $5,000 in the next fiscal year.

He said Pawtucket officials had reviewed Man Up’s documentation and found no indication that
AEP had been paid out of its grant money. But it wants to make sure by asking DLT officials to
audit its grants, too.

In her office Friday morning, Price said any audit of her agency’s books would find they are “fine,”
but she declined further comment.

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According to the Man Up website, Price worked for 20 years in “various capacities” with the state
and federal court systems, including in case management and human resources, before launching
her nonprofit in 2011. She got her first client two years later, in September 2013.

Man Up’s incorporation papers list among its directors Kevin Stacom, a former Providence College
basketball standout who went on to play in the NBA and now scouts for the Dallas Mavericks;
Rufus Bailey, of Providence, an internal auditor at Delta Dental of Rhode Island; and William
Owens, of Boston, a retired state senator.

The website also runs a list of “partners and supporters” that includes Kenneth Walker, a retired
chairman of the state Parole board; Andrew Horwitz, director and supervising attorney at Roger
Williams University Criminal Defense Clinic; and John McCray Jr., URI’s former vice president for
student affairs and vice provost for urban programs at the Alan Shawn Feinstein College of
Continuing Education.

In a report to the House Fiscal Advisor last month, Price reported that Man Up received a $30,000
legislative community service grant last year and, in total, $195,900 from the state.

The report also lists other funding sources, including the $10,000 block grant from Pawtucket,
$5,000 from Delta Dental of Rhode Island and $1,000 from the city of Providence from the Dexter
Knight Foundation.

Price reported she earned a salary of $30,000 as CEO and in 2014 used AEP as “our fiscal agent
because we did not have our nonprofit status” at that time. Since then Man Up has been approved
as a 501C3 nonprofit, but isn’t expected to file its required 990 IRS forms until later this year.

Since enrolling its first participant in 2013, Price reported last month that “sixteen men have
graduated from an industry specific training program and 10 have secured employment. Nine are
currently active and still receiving services working toward training and job placement.”

With staff reports by Patrick Anderson

- tmooney@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7359

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On Twitter: @mooneyprojo

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