Rocked by financial scandal, Ocean Beach Town Council’s board president has resigned along with a couple of executive board members, the council has lost its 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status and an independent CPA has been retained to audit the group’s finances dating back to 2017 thoroughly.
OBTC’s tax-exempt status was automatically revoked by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for failure to file tax returns for at least three consecutive years. Though organizations like the town councils are exempt from income taxation, they generally must file annual returns with the IRS of their income and expenses.
Of the financial predicament, Cameron Reid, former OBTC and OB Community Foundation vice president who recently retired, pointed out the group’s current financial dilemma goes back to May 2023 when two board members were working on a grant application.
“They discovered that our federal and state taxes had not been filed for several years,” noted Reid. He added, “From the course of May through the present, numerous formal requests were made of our OBTC/OBCF president (Corey Bruins) to provide us with connectivity to our bank accounts and bank statements to rectify our delinquent 990 (IRS forms).”
Additionally, noted Reid: “The OBTC/OBCF president was the only signer on our accounts, and no one else on the executive committee had access. [Bruins] was subsequently removed from all bank account access. In October 2023, Jenny Brengleman was appointed the new treasurer of the executive committee. She has been tasked with bringing us into our IRS compliance.”
Reid said Brengleman’s plan includes:
○ Applying for reinstatement of OBTC’s tax-exempt status;
○ Filing (Form RRF-1) with the California Attorney General’s office and paying any incurred fees;
○ Filing delinquent 990s with the IRS, and;
○ Updating the Statement of Information (Form SI-100) with the California Secretary of State’s office.
On Jan. 18, OBTC’s board unanimously approved a vote of no confidence in Bruins as the president of the council and he was subsequently removed, on Jan. 22, from both OBTC and OBCF.
“The OBTC board is taking these matters very seriously and has hired a CPA to conduct a third-party, independent audit to address banking and reporting irregularities to execute our IRS compliance tasks,” said Reid.
