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Excerpts from a letter sent from international carpenters union General President Douglas McCarron to Willie Gore, president of Local 247 in Portland.

鈥�(I)t appears that the affairs of Local Union 247 are being conducted in a manner detrimental to the welfare and best interests of Local Union 247, the UBC and its members 鈥� and that the continued operation of Local Union 247 is in jeopardy.鈥�

鈥�(I)t appears that a clerical employee of the Local Union has control of a signature stamp, which can be used on checks of the Local Union 鈥� there was not always supporting documentation for each check issued 鈥︹��

According to an accountant鈥檚 report, 鈥�(C)redit card charges did not have appropriate supporting documentation attached to the statement indicating (the) business purpose for each transaction. There were many charges to such companies as Safeway, Fred Meyer, Cash & Carry, Albertsons, Borders, Target, Costco and others that there is no support as to items purchased and business use of those items attached to the statement.鈥�

The international carpenters union has taken over operations of the Portland union local amid allegations of misused union credit cards and inadequate supervision.

Douglas McCarron, the general president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, said to Local Union 247 President Willie Gore that “the continued operation of Local Union 247 is in jeopardy.”

According to McCarron’s letter, two of the local union’s credit cards had been used to ring up charges at grocery stores and retail stores, including Borders, Target and Costco; the grocery transactions alone sometimes totaled five in a single week.

There was no supporting documentation explaining the business purpose for the purchases, according to the letter, and receipts were incomplete or missing.

Two credit cards were issued in the name of the union local’s financial secretary, with one in his possession and the other in the possession of the office manager. The union local’s Web roster on Friday listed Joe Baron as financial secretary; he could not be reached for comment.

Christie Kern, vice president of Local 247, said she did not have a comment at this time.

The Local 247 Web page was replaced later Friday with a message that the site was down because of “technical difficulties.”

Michael Draper, western district vice president for the carpenters union, has taken control as supervisor of Local 247. He’ll remain in that position until a hearing is held.

Eric Franklin, spokesman for the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters, said that criminal charges could result. “If the funds cannot be accounted for and the receipts cannot be found to be legitimate, I’d expect that the bonding company, if nothing else, would want to recover money from that,” he said.

“These are fairly drastic measures,” Franklin said. “It’s a big deal.”

Local union members brought the issues to the international union’s attention in the last couple of months, Franklin said. “Members had concerns about lax specificity in the reports, and clerical staff being evasive and not cooperative.

“The feeling was, when the folks went to the elected officers in the local, there was not a concern for the behavior, and in fact there was push-back,” he said.

A western district representative reviewed the local’s credit card statements from January 2009 to February 2010, and an accounting firm looked at finances and oversight from July 2006 through March 2010.

The local’s officers and trustees are responsible for properly managing the union’s money, Franklin said. “Our concern was that all the various officers whose job it was to monitor the funds, approve finances and be on top of that stuff were negligent.

“While the local’s financial health was not in jeopardy, it could have easily been so,” Franklin said. “With trustees failing to monitor things, how long would it take to empty the bank account?”

According to McCarron’s letter, trustees said during an internal investigation that they did not review credit card receipts, and local union meeting minutes show that trustees had expressed frustration over not having access to all the receipts.

Other allegations in the letter:

• Employees used more sick and vacation time than permitted, with the office manager taking nearly 37 days of sick time and 34 days of vacation time in 2009 alone. The office manager has “habitual tardiness,” doesn’t always open the office on time, and works overtime to make up for excessive sick and vacation time.
• Adjustments were made to hours worked on time cards after the week’s payroll had been paid, and there was no way to verify the adjustments.
• Deposits were held at the union office and not deposited properly; no deposits from March had been entered into the general ledger system by March 26.
• Auditor adjustments for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2009 had not been made as of March 26.

The union’s dispatch system for local carpenters is unaffected, Franklin said. A hearing will be held in the next few weeks to look into the allegations.

It’s not clear when the improper practices started, Franklin said. He wasn’t sure how much money was unaccounted for.

“Obviously, we’re going to be looking further to see if more funds are missing (and if) there’s more misuse of credit cards – things like that,” he said.

It took the international union a while to catch the alleged misdeeds because nothing looked unusual from the outside, Franklin said. “The local was not broke; it had money in the bank and could meet its financial commitments.

“But some procedures were clearly taking them down the wrong track, and that can’t be tolerated.”