Townships should hit benchmarks of non-profits

Your article "Where aid funds go" was enlightening and very disheartening.

By most measures, any non-government non-profit organization with overhead expenses (i.e., salaries and administrative costs) in excess of 33 percent would be deemed as not fulfilling their charitable mission.

With some township percentage of direct aid donations to recipients in only single digits and many in the 30th percentile, this highlights the inability of government agencies to fulfill an effective role in aid distribution.

It would be appropriate and reasonable that government agencies meet the overhead benchmarks of most non-profits. Township managers should be held accountable to these levels of performance; otherwise, their programs should be terminated in favor of outsourced services provided by more competent private sector non-profit organizations.

Lawrence F. Buettner

Long Grove