Report: Charity misspent state funds on luxury SUV

A Chicago AIDS awareness organization misspent more than $45,000 in public funds on a luxury SUV, but that didn’t stop the state from continuing to fund the group, according to a published report.

Working for Togetherness initially denied using state money for the 2003 Hummer, but the Illinois Department of Public Health learned that the organization’s executive director didn’t properly request the vehicle purchase, according to a report in Tuesday’s editions of the Chicago Sun-Times.

The group bought the pre-owned Hummer in 2004 and used it for HIV/AIDS-awareness outreach in black neighborhoods.

The state gave the group $150,000 in 2004 to provide HIV test kits and infection information. Once the misuse of funds was discovered, the state asked the group to return $22,500, or about half the Hummer’s cost.

Marj Halperin, a spokeswoman for former health department Director Eric Whitaker, tells The Associated Press that the state didn’t take its decision to continue funding the group lightly. State officials ultimately decided the “fancy car worked” in helping the group do HIV/AIDS outreach, and because the group paid for half of the SUV, taxpayers ended up getting the use of a luxury vehicle for the cost of a more conventional one, she said.

Halperin said the flashy SUV outfitted with TVs, DVD players and video game systems was effective at attracting attention and getting a hard-to-reach population heavily impacted by HIV — young black men — to get tested.

The state could have cut Working for Togetherness off from government funding, but the group got more than $2,200 in 2007 and another $75,000 from Whitaker’s successor.

The organization has since gone out of business and the executive director has died. The Hummer was damaged in a January 2009 crash and sold for salvage. It’s not clear what became of the sale proceeds.