Chancellor Carol Folt’s decision to release a Form 990 for the Chapel Hill Foundation is an admirable one, but she should also push the foundation to release budget information for those years that it opted not to release any information to the public about its ongoing operations.
The foundation is the University’s primary donation arm. Earlier this month, The Daily Tar Heel reported that the organization took advantage of its status as a nonprofit to avoid fulfilling public record requests while using its connection to the University as the basis for claiming an exemption from filing a Form 990, a form nonprofits are required to file with the IRS.
Form 990s often include information about an organization’s income, net assets and executive compensation. They also require organizations to disclose whether they initiated any new activities or changed their governing processes.
This is information that the public deserves to know about the fund, which was used to pay for the Wainstein report and UNC’s mounting legal fees.
Citing her ongoing commitment to transparency, Folt said she decided that the foundation will file a Form 990 for the last fiscal year by May 15.
The chancellor should take that commitment one step further by calling on the foundation to release the information that would have been included in these forms for every year since fiscal year 2007-08, the last time the foundation filed a Form 990.
