Taxpayer-funded group admits illegal corporate structure
CONCORD – House Deputy Speaker Pam Tucker and Senator Ray White today joined to call on Attorney General Michael Delaney to move to bring the Local Government Center (LGC) into court-appointed receivership after the taxpayer-funded group admitted that it illegally incorporated itself as Delaware non-profit limited liability companies in 2003. A report released last month by the Secretary of State’s Bureau of Securities Regulation outlined a number of irregularities and violations of law by the LGC, which handles public employee and retiree health benefits, liability insurance and other services for local communities. Tucker is the prime sponsor of legislation to review the LGC in the wake of the highly critical state report.
House Deputy Speaker Pam Tucker:
“The admission that LGC was illegally incorporated is one more example why this troubled entity may need more state involvement. The LGC was created by state law and the legislature through the years should have done a better job of overseeing pooled risk management groups like this. While we work to do our oversight responsibility and get to the bottom of what’s going on with this group which takes in a tremendous amount of local property tax dollars, the Attorney General should begin the process of moving to put LGC into receivership to ensure that taxpayer funds are protected.”
Senator Ray White:
“As someone who works in the insurance business, I have a lot of unanswered questions about how the LGC operates and where our tax dollars are going. When this group came to the Senate Commerce Committee to ask for special protection from investigation and oversight, it sent a clear message to me that the legislature needed to take a deeper look into this group, and the Secretary of State’s report began to peel back the layers and showed exactly why we need reform. The Attorney General should move quickly to get into court for a receiver for LGC so we can begin to rebuild the public’s trust and make sure that our communities can have confidence that they are getting good value for the hard-earned taxpayer funds that they are spending. The integrity of these insurance pools must be safeguarded for their intended purpose.”