Non-profit spends on executives' perks

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CHARLESTOWN, Mass., March 8 (UPI) -- A Massachusetts non-profit organization has been singled out for wasting taxpayer dollars on high living for its executives, an auditor's report said.

Funding of Life Focus Center Inc. of Charlestown, Mass., intended to help disabled people, instead was devoted to executives' restaurant bills, liquor purchases and Disney World vacations, said State Auditor Suzanne M. Bump, who ordered the organization to return $130,000 in state funding.

"It's horrifying to think that money that is supposed to go to severely disabled people would instead be benefiting the administrators of this program," Bump told the Boston Herald Wednesday.

The audit revealed Life Focus Center Executive Director Jack Millerick, whose compensation in 2010 was in excess of $171,000, charged $123,000 on the agency's credit card, including charges at Disney World and at restaurants and stores near his Andover home and his New Hampshire vacation home.

It also stated that executives routinely hired family members for positions with the agency.

Life Focus, which offers services and job training to the disabled, received $2 million in state funds in 2010, part of its budget of $2.9 million, the newspaper reported.