SARASOTA -- The Flanzer Jewish Community Center hid its dire financial problems from even its own board and the Sarasota-Manatee Jewish Federation until it was too late to help, the federation's president said Wednesday night.

By the time the federation learned the JCC couldn't make payroll in October, the JCC was losing more than $1 million per year and would need to double its membership to become viable again, Lewis Hanan told several hundred people in a Sarasota temple.

"I was shocked" at the magnitude of the problems, Hanan said, adding that he believes the JCC board members weren't aware of it either.

The federation, a separate nonprofit group that works to support the Jewish community, let the JCC operate rent-free on its land since 1989. It also gave yearly donations as high as $400,000.

The JCC had financial problems for years, but got an acceptable audit in December 2005, Hanan said. The JCC told the federation that membership was up in 2006, it built tennis courts and it announced a major donation as late as September.

"How could we conclude they would be closing their doors in a couple of months?" Hanan said.

The federation called the meeting Wednesday to give its side of the JCC's closing this month. Hanan told reporters earlier in the day that the JCC closing was "the end of an era for the Jewish community."

Some members of that community say the foundation could have done more to save the JCC, a 70,000-square-foot facility that included preschool and day-care programs, exercise equipment and a theater.

The foundation said that changing demographics made the JCC's demise inevitable. The JCC only served 500 of an estimated 10,000 Jewish households, which are now so spread out they don't support one central community center.

Experts told the foundation that it would take a $3.7 million bailout and $1 million of support each year to maintain the JCC, Hanan said. Even the YMCA, with all of its knowledge and funds, couldn't make it work after taking over the operations in November.

"The fact that the YMCA failed reemphasizes the failure was something that was inevitable," Hanan said. "We were never aware of the extent of the financial problems."

Former JCC board member Barbara Katz told the crowd at Wednesday night's meeting that the JCC went through several chief financial officers in 2006 who kept the board in the dark.

"It was a series of controllers that kept quitting and never giving the reports," Katz said.

The JCC had problems for years. It came to the foundation in 2002 and 2003 for help with cash-flow problems, and got a loan from the foundation in 2004 to give it enough time to "right the ship," past foundation President Allan Feder said.

Not even raising more than $1.5 million for facility improvements in late 2005 and early 2006 could win "a losing battle," he said.

Even then, the federation's board was uncomfortable with the lack of financial information from the JCC. Hanan said he stopped the federation's donations to the JCC in July when the board only got excuses for not getting reports.

One time the JCC told him it couldn't provide the records because it had a new computer system, and several times it said there was a new chief financial officer. One former employee told the federation that she routinely had to hold off cashing her paychecks.

Hanan said the federation plans to start programs like the ones the JCC ran, except do it "without walls." That means decentralizing the programs and holding them wherever they are needed.

The federation, which owns the JCC property, said it will now have to decide what to do with it.

When the YMCA took over, it found buildings that had not been maintained. There were exposed wires.

Money from families who put down deposits for day care was spent as part of the JCC's general funds.

The JCC's membership revenue steadily declined since 2000 while it lost more than $1 million a year running its programs some years, according to tax returns the organization filed.

Phone messages left with several of the JCC's top officers went unanswered Wednesday.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070412/NEWS/704120413