The president of the Police Officers of Scottsdale Association, Jim Hill, announced this week he will be stepping down at the end of the month.
POSA, a 501(c)5 labor organization, has been under scrutiny since early December, when KJZZ first reported that two-thirds of money raised for POSA’s annual Christmas Shop With A Cop and Back-To-School events for underprivileged children went to a for-profit telemarketer. A small fraction — less than 9 percent in 2010, for instance — actually benefited the charitable causes, according to the police association’s tax records.
In an email to POSA members and supporters obtained by KJZZ, Hill disclosed other reasons for his resignation.
After a 20-year tenure with the Scottsdale Police Department, Hill said he “decided to start putting out feelers to see where the next chapter of my life might take me.”
Hill said he had accepted a new job at the Maricopa County Community College District’s Department of Public Safety, and was therefore retiring from the Scottsdale Police Department and stepping down from POSA.
“In POSA, retirees can’t hold board positions because retirees shouldn’t be making decisions on the working conditions/compensation of those still on the job,” Hill wrote.
Vernon Parker, the former mayor of Paradise Valley who has been doing consulting and public relations for POSA this year, said Hill has been planning to retire for a while.
“There is zero connection whatsoever between what was reported in the media and Jim retiring,” Parker said.
In January, Hill’s wife, Cindy Hill, stepped down as executive director of POSA Outreach Inc., the charitable 501(C)3 arm of POSA, to start a statewide law enforcement charity called the Arizona Law Enforcement Outreach & Support. Cindy Hill also said her decision was not tied to recent media attention.
Jim Hill stated in his email that John Heinzelman, a vice president of POSA, would be his successor. However, Parker said POSA’s board of directors hasn't officially decided.
Parker said the board is meeting Monday to discuss Hill’s replacement and also possible alternatives to its current telemarketer, PFR Promotions LLC, which shares an office space with POSA in downtown Scottsdale.
Parker and his business partners will present the POSA board with a report they’d been working on for the last few months that will include recommendations for improving operations.
“We looked at everything from fundraising to the organizational structure,” Parker said. “But the bottom line was that, the biggest issue out there was the fundraiser/telemarketer that they’re using.”
PFR Promotions has helped POSA raise roughly $1 million annually for the past few years, almost double the donations collected in 2006, POSA’s tax records show. Donations are collected year-round from community members and corporate sponsors to help needy kids at Christmastime and before the new school year.
But in 2010, for instance, only about $47,000 was spent on the kids programs, which was less than 9 percent of that year’s donations, records show.
Parker said whatever the POSA board’s next move may be, it will need to reevaluate how much money is actually needed for its charitable programs, and what portion should go toward fundraising expenses.
“If you have a streamlined process, you may not have to raise as much money as you did in the past,” said Parker, noting that fundraising expenses should account for roughly 15 percent of total donations, not two-thirds as has been the case with PFR Promotions.
But that scenario could change things for POSA as an organization as well, he said, because it has mostly depended on those funds collected by the telemarketer to cover its operating expenses throughout the year.
“They really don’t have a large operation. They’re run pretty efficiently given the nature of what they do,” Parker said. “Most of the officers who participate are volunteers, and so that’s another aspect of the report that will be presented to them, as to take a look at their internal operations to look at what direction they want to go in the future also.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: KJZZ is licensed to Rio Salado College, part of the Maricopa County Community College District.
