Former Irvine Foundation CEO and His Wife Repay Fund for Benefits That Raised Questions

A former president of the James Irvine Foundation and his wife have repaid the foundation $31,300 for some of the benefits they received during his 16-year tenure, the foundation disclosed last month.

Dennis A. Collins, who headed the foundation from 1986 until he stepped down two years ago, paid back $25,000 that Irvine had awarded him as a parting gift after the California attorney general’s office said it was illegal.

And Mollie Collins has repaid $6,300 for the use of foundation facilities to run her private business from 1993 to 2001, which the Irvine board determined constituted self-dealing. Mrs. Collins had contended that such a use was permissible.

The foundation posted that information on its Web site in a letter from the foundation’s chairman, Peter W. Stanley, and its current president, James E. Canales, detailing actions the board has taken to restore its credibility in the wake of an April article in the San Jose Mercury News that raised questions about those and other foundation expenditures. Irvine has also posted its most recent informational tax return, for 2002, and a letter from the attorney general’s office announcing the results of its investigation into the foundation’s affairs.

Mr. Stanley and Mr. Canales note in their letter that the attorney general’s office did not challenge the board’s procedure in setting Mr. Collins’s pay, which totaled more than $700,000 in salary and deferred compensation in 1999.

Farewell Parties

The tax return for 2002 shows that Mr. Collins, who retired on January 31, 2002, received $350,629 in salary and $482,292 in deferred compensation for that year, which covered one month’s service as president and 11 months as a “transition adviser” to his successor, Mary G.F. Bitterman.

In a July 25 letter to the foundation’s lawyers, Belinda J. Johns, supervising deputy attorney general, did take issue with two farewell parties for Mr. Collins that the foundation underwrote, at a total cost of $104,000. The foundation had argued that the parties furthered its charitable purpose by promoting interaction with charity officials in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

While the parties arguably might have served such a purpose, Ms. Johns wrote, “the appearance created is not a favorable one, and the image of the Foundation and of charitable institutions generally is degraded by events such as this. Although we refrain from concluding that the board breached its fiduciary duty in funding these events, we trust that the board will act more prudently in the future.”