Whether or not The Center should conduct background checks on its board members has been a topic of debate since the community first learned of the proposal last fall. The Center currently conducts background checks on its staff and volunteers. There are two types of insurance The Center carries, general liability and directors and officers, along with a sexual molest rider to cover the youth component of the nonprofit organization.

Speaking with the Gay and Lesbian Times for an article published on April 10, Delores Jacobs, The Center’s executive director, said that in order to have the sexual molest rider renewed by their current insurance carrier, Charity First, the organization would have to conduct background checks on its board members or seek alternative coverage — which she said would either be too costly or could not be obtained with a sexual molest rider.

However, speaking with various nonprofits and insurance professionals this week, the Times found that virtually no nonprofits currently seem to be requiring background checks on their board members, given — as with Center board members — their minimal interaction with youth.

“None of us on the board is an insurance expert, nor should we really be playing that role as a board member,” said board chair Robert Gleason. “We’re entitled to rely on the experts, whether those are attorneys or insurance brokers or any other kinds of professionals.”

Gleason said board members Fred Sainz and Bob Hirsh were appointed last fall to look into the matter of whether the background checks are required. “They went through a process of discussing with [The Center’s agent] Jim North other available insurance, other available insurers … and what would technically and literally be required under our current lines of insurance.”

Gleason acknowledged, “Questions have arisen about the completeness of that information. And so we have engaged in further discussion on the topic….”

To that end, Gleason said he put forth a proposal last week to form a “formal subcommittee that would go beyond the experts that we have consulted with so far as a board to try and see what’s available out there [in terms of insurance].”

However, with the subject of background checks on the agenda for next Tuesday’s board meeting (May 27), and several board members purportedly pushing for a yes vote on the proposal, how much research such a committee will conduct before then is unclear.

Though North provided numbers for three agents at Charity First, none would discuss The Center’s insurance or its requirements, citing “privacy issues.” However, viewing a copy of the sexual molest rider application for The Center’s insurance, the Times found it only asks whether the organization conducts background checks on staff and volunteers.

Both Jacbos and Board Chair Kevin Tilden had previously told the Times the application asked whether “all volunteers” were given background checks, stating that their legal council, Attorneys Paula Rosenstein and Bridget Wilson, told them this included board members.

Asked about the difficulty of a nonprofit organization obtaining a sexual molest rider without conducting background checks on its board members, Ponji Kennedy, a local broker with JPL Insurance, said, “It’s not hard, you can get the coverage…. If they’re just sitting on the board and that’s it, most carriers will say, ‘You know what, we don’t care about that.’ … I’ve done a lot of directors and officers liability, as well as nonprofits, both working with children … and it was only for those who work directly with [children].”

However, she cautioned, “By the time your policy comes up for renewal in October, who knows what could happen…. Unfortunately, with litigation in California, that’s what changes insurance policies.”

According to Debbie Upland, who writes for San Francisco’s LGBT youth center, “The insurance company we work with does not requite background checks with directors and officers, nor fingerprint checks, because generally they do not work with the kids. The only background fingerprint checks that we do are with employees or volunteers that work with the kids on a regular basis or where they would be in a situation where it’s behind closed doors, such as counseling or overnight field trips. That’s pretty standard for most of the companies, and the company that we use, NIAC (Nonprofit Insurance Association of California) specializes in this kind of situation.”

“No, we do not do [background checks]; we never have,” Scott Wiener, co-chair of the San Francisco LGBT Community Center Board of Directors, clarified. “We have a child watch space and we have a staff person who is assigned to it and runs it. Board members really wouldn’t have any more contact with the child care space than any member of the public would, so it wouldn’t really be a board issue in terms of children…. To my knowledge our insurance carrier has never asked us to do that.”

“Many government funders of youth serving agencies require that paid staff who have direct working contact with youth be subject to the kind of background checks that you’re mentioning,” added Richard Burns, executive director of New York City’s LGBT Community Center. “However, I have never heard of anyone requiring criminal background checks of a member of a volunteer board of directors. That strikes me as an intrusive requirement and if I were them, I would change insurance companies.

“In general, when someone is nominated to a non-profit board of directors it is indeed an excellent practice to check references and call people who they have worked with in the non-profit community and the gay community to learn about their track record,” added Burns. “However, to run a criminal background check on a nominee for a non-profit board seems to me to be an invasion of privacy and quite intrusive.”

Kar Yin Tham, executive director of LYRIC-A Cyber Place of Our Own, in San Francisco, noted that her board of directors had both youth and adults serving on it.

“I have definitely heard about what’s happening in San Diego in terms of moving towards having background checks for volunteer board members, which is not what we do here,” said Tham. “We do it with staff because they are the ones working with young people…. Any other contact that board members might have with youth is usually related to our events. Of course they are going to be at our events, but it’s a public event or, even if it’s a party, it’s a party. They don’t have that responsibility to work with youth at the level that staff do.”

Asked how much interaction staff members actually have with youth, Gleason said, “I think the board has considerable contact, even if they’re not actually volunteering at the Youth Center. It comes mostly in the context of events, the volunteer recognition party. We have a lot of youth who are volunteers, at the gala, at other organizations. And it’s going to come down to a liability call on the part of board members and how comfortable we are with the potential exposure that exists.”

However, Bernie Porter, Vice President of Risk Management and Assistant General Counsel for the YMCA of San Diego County, noted that board members will often go to one of the YMCA branches to conduct a board meeting, where there are frequently youth from toddlers to those in their late teens in the building. Still, the YMCA does not require background checks for its board members, which it terms “policy volunteers.”

Of policy volunteers Porter said, “They’re not in the position of taking advantage of kids, so we don’t do a background check.”

Asked who would have access to the information obtained from a board member’s background check if the proposal becomes policy, Gleason said, “That’s unclear. There hasn’t been any decision or particularly any discussion on that issue.”

Given this uncertainty as to how the background checks would be implemented and Gleason’s own eleventh hour proposal to shop insurance carriers beyond Jim North, the Times asked whether the issue shouldn’t be moved back on the agenda.

“We have committed to the community and to ourselves that we would struggle with this issue and that we would try and vote on it in May,” said Gleason. “There may be some feeling that we need to put something in place.”

Asked how he himself would vote in the matter, Gleason said he hadn’t made up his mind yet, stating, “We have attorneys who are capable and well respected and have advised The Center for a long time…. I personally see no reason not to follow their advice.”

However, board member Julia Legaspi, a postoperative transsexual, said she has been opposed to the background checks from the beginning. “I don’t want it to turn into a discrimination issue against transgenders, but that’s where it’s heading right now, because we are the most impacted by this,” said Legaspi. “It’s part of the stigma that comes with that change. It’s a long process that you have to go through, but once in a while, when you apply for credit, for loans, even when I was buying a house, [on the form], identity comes up. Either the questions are, ‘Are you using somebody else’s social security number?’ or ‘Are you using somebody else’s identity.’

“I made my stance,” concluded Legaspi. “I explained to them why. It’s a personal and moral obligation for me to speak about how the members of my community are being affected by this…. We’ve been presented with those facts [by the board], but now we’re getting more information about it. I can’t say that we’ve been lied to, but the facts are different. From the information that I’m gathering right now, it’s not a requirement.”

According to board member Jennifer LeSar, The Center is now closer to looking at giving board members the option of signing an affidavit instead of undergoing a background check. “It’s my understanding that we’re beginning to find a solution in an affidavit instead of fingerprinting,” she said.

LeSar said the affidavit would not prohibit all contact with youth, only severely limit a board member’s contact with youth. She said her understanding is that by signing the affidavit, it would not prohibit board members from attending The Center’s gala and community functions where both youth and board members are in attendance.

The Center’s board meeting will be held next Tuesday, May 27, at 6:30 p.m. and is open to the public. For more information, phone (619) 692-2077.