Stegman strikes out at Tony LaRussa’s ARF

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

CONTRA COSTA, Calif.– David Stegman, executive director of
Tony LaRussa’s Animal Rescue Foundation since May 1997, resigned for
undisclosed reasons on January 17, 2003.
Stegman ended a six-year career as a major league outfielder
playing for LaRussa with the Chicago White Sox in 1983-1984. His
successor at ARF has not yet been named.
LaRussa and Stegman in 1999 contracted with Maddie’s Fund,
of Alameda, California, for ARF to become the lead agency in
administering a planned five-year program to take Contra Costa County
to no-kill animal control. It was to have been the first of many
such programs sponsored by Maddie’s Fund–but ARF withdrew after
failing to meet some of the first-year goals.

Under Stegman, 36% of the 1999 ARF program budget and 15% of
the 2000 program budget went to operate a driving school headed by
Art Lee-Drews, who formerly worked with Stegman at the San Ramon
Valley Community Services Group.
ANIMAL PEOPLE consulted two leading nonprofit attorneys who
confirmed that this project should not have been construed as a
charitable program of an animal shelter. Stegman and LaRussa claimed
it was intended to make money to support animal rescue, but since it
was originally independently incorporated on a nonprofit basis, it
should not have been operated as an unrelated for-profit business
activity either.
The driving school was eventually dropped, but during
Stegman’s last three fiscal years the percentage of Tony LaRussa’s
Animal Foundation budget spent on fundraising and administration rose
from 46% to 65%, according to IRS Form 990 filings. The Wise Giving
Alliance recommends that charities should spend no more than 35% of
their budgets on fundraising and administration.
Tony LaRussa’s ARF operates animal rescue programs in both
Contra Costa County, California, and Phoenix, Arizona.