NH Little League officials say former admin drained bank account in anger

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 1 p.m. on April 25 to include additional comments from Donald Kirkland II.

MANCHESTER, NH – New Hampshire’s District 1 Little League Administrator Sally Dreckmann wants two things: An apology from her predecessor, Donald N. Kirkland II, and the $17,500 she says he gave away to charity days after she was officially named as his replacement.

“I don’t want to see him go to jail. He’s done a lot of good over the years, but what I do want is for him to return the District’s money, and I want him to say he’s sorry for what he did,” Dreckmann said.

What Kirkland did, based on canceled checks and the initial findings of an investigation into the matter by Derry Police, is that on Oct. 31 he wrote two donation checks from the District 1 bank account to Dana Farber Cancer Institute, one for $9,000 and the other for $8,500.

On Dec. 30 he sent a money order for $465.13 to Little League headquarters in Williamsport, also as a donation from the District 1 account, completely draining the account of  $17,965.13. His legal authority to write checks on that account ended Oct. 27, according to paperwork received by Dreckmann.

And beyond that, the money is there to support all 17 of New Hampshire Little Leagues in District 1 for things like tournament banners and pins, umpire school, patches, trophies, and administrative expenses.

Kirkland disputes that he did anything wrong.

He says he has never been contacted by Little League officials informing him that he was no longer the District Administrator.

“They never contacted me,” Kirkland said, during a phone interview on April 25.

When asked about why he emptied the bank account, Kirkland defended his actions, saying it is not unusual for a District Administrator to donate “all the money” in a bank account to charity.

“Are you telling me that donating money to kids sick with cancer is a bad thing?” Kirkland said.

However, according to an April 10, 2015 treasurer’s report, only three donations have been made over the past eight years to Dana Farber – in 2008, 2010 and 2014 – averaging about $2,800 each. A carryover balance is reflected each year, ranging from a low of $14,182.38 in 2008 to a high of $21,349.37 in 2012.

Kirkland said it was not he who challenged Dreckmann’s election in June of 2015 as the new District Administrator.

“That was Little League, not me. Last I heard from them, they said in September I was not to turn over the district financial documents to Sally until some issues were settled,” said Kirkland, referring to some unpaid fees for Central Little League, while under her direction as president.

“I waited a month, and when I didn’t hear anything, I got what was left of my board together and we agreed together to donate the money,” Kirkland said.

Dreckmann says once her status as District Administrator was settled by Little League and outstanding fees were paid, she was ready to take over. Multiple fruitless attempts were made to contact Kirkland via email and telephone, so they could transfer the district paperwork and financials.

“He never returned my calls or emails,” Dreckmann said.

After several months of leg work on her part, Dreckmann finally began to unravel the first puzzle, which was figuring out which bank held the District 1 bank account. An inquiry at Citizens Bank led to some old paperwork that provided a routing number which Dreckmann was able to trace to Santander Bank.

And that’s how Dreckmann first learned that the account had been emptied.

After several more months of doing her due diligence to correct the situation through “proper League channels,” Dreckmann says she feels as frustrated as ever.

Dreckmann – and some others on the District 1 board – believe Kirkland should be held accountable for his actions, no matter what his reasoning was, and that he should return the money. If the pressure of a police investigation is what it takes, maybe one of the 17 individual leagues will ask to reopen the investigation.

“I’ve known Don since 1994. This is heartbreaking,” said Steve Heffelfinger, a District 1 board member who formerly spent 19 years on the Derry Little League Board of Directors, serving alongside Kirkland. “He worked for 50 years doing a lot for our community, and for Little League. But instead, what he’ll be remembered for is being the guy who stole $18,000 from the children in District 1.”

Heffelfinger says he has lingering questions about why neither Eastern Region nor Williamsport officials have followed up with Kirkland over the past several years to ask about the financial documentation required of him. Records show that the last time District 1 filed financials with Williamsport was in 2010.

Little League officials from Bristol, CT, and Williamsport, PA, see it differently. They told Dreckmann they are not going to pursue the matter further, and that they are confident the District can make up the loss through fundraising and fees to the 17 leagues.

“Little League International worked closely with the local league leadership and their new District Administrator, and are satisfied with the decision made locally to move forward from this situation and focus on the 2016 season,” said Brian McClintock, who is Senior Director of Communications for Little League International.

“We are confident that New Hampshire District 1 has the financial support it needs to be fully operational and can continue their efforts to ensure all children within their district have a fun, meaningful Little League experience,” said McClintock in a written response, when contacted last week for this story.

Dreckmann and Heffelfinger say that is not quite how it went – Eastern Regional Little League Assistant Regional Director Corey Wright attended the board meeting on April 17 and made it clear that Little League International officials were not going to pursue the matter further, which then led to a majority of the District’s Presidents voting to drop the police investigation.

“It leaves me in a Catch 22,” says Dreckmann. “Little League officials want me to create a budget and figure out a way to absorb the missing money through fundraising. But I can’t do that because the District 1 account was never set up by Don Kirkland as a 501c3, so we can’t ask for donations because they won’t be tax deductible. They keep saying I should follow procedure, but they are giving me no guidance.”

Manchester State Rep. Dick Marston, who has deep roots with Little League, agrees with Dreckmann, that the matter should not be dropped. He’s been active for more than 40 years as a past president of three leagues, including Central Little League, and continues to umpire. He says he had heard some rumblings through the grapevine and called Dreckmann a few days ago to find out the story.

He knows Kirkland well enough to know that emptying the account was likely done out of anger over getting voted out as District Administrator, or vengeance against Dreckmann – or both.

He knows enough about right and wrong to know that this situation is wrong, and needs to be corrected.

“I’m going to Concord this week to talk to someone in the Attorney General’s office, someone from the Charitable Trust department. I know that Little League baseball despises anything that would put a black eye on the organization. I get that. Any corporation would. That’s why I think they’d rather sweep this under the rug, but it’s wrong,” says Marston.

He says he will request that the Attorney General’s office pick up where Derry Police left off.

“When you are handling money for a charitable organization, the Attorney General’s office has a right to know exactly what you are doing,” Marston says. “If Kirkland violated the rules and regulations, it needs to be brought out into the light of day.”

He feels that Dreckmann should be able to correct the problem with 501c3 status easily. And he also believes Kirkland should do the right thing by repaying the District.

“Each one of us has in one form or another chipped into the district’s funds. That is public monies, and for him to act as he did, well, it’s just wrong, and it needs to be corrected,” Marston says.

Below is a timeline of what has transpired since June of 2015 based on a review of correspondences, documents and interviews:

• Dreckmann was voted in as the new District Administrator in June of 2015 by a vote of 10-7.

• Her election was challenged by Kirkland, who raised questions about some financial deadlines missed by Dreckmann while serving as President of Central Little League. Specifically, outstanding debts Manchester Central Little League owed to Indian Head Athletics and to Leblanc Hardware while Dreckmann served as president, which were paid by the Oct. 15, 2015 deadline imposed by the Little League Eastern Region (Bristol) office.  Dreckmann was also questioned about why Manchester Central Little League’s charter was paid after the deadline of June 15,2015.  Her response was that payment was eight days late because Central was waiting for sponsor money to come in.  Mr. Kirkland then visited one of the sponsors (St. Mary’s Bank) and they remitted payment to Central for their sponsorship, resolving the issues raised by Kirkland.

• Little League reviewed the challenge and found everything to be in order. They confirmed that the original vote stood and that Dreckmann was officially taking over as District Administrator on Oct. 27, 2015 at 4 p.m.

• After Dreckmann’s election as District 1 Administrator was confirmed, Kirkland was contacted by both Dreckmann and Eastern Region Little League officials, advising him that he should relinquish all District 1 documents and bank account information to Dreckmann.

• Multiple attempts by Dreckmann and Eastern Region League officials from Connecticut were made to contact Kirkland, by phone and email, with no success.
• Kirkland maintains that he had no contact from Little League representatives, or from Dreckmann. He emptied the bank account between Oct. 31 and Dec. 30, 2015 with three charitable donations.

• In February Dreckmann finally tracked down the bank account information, only to be told by the bank that it had a zero balance. She was shown the canceled checks to Dana Farber and a money order sent to Little League in Williamsport. She shared this information with Little League officials, who asked her not to go to the police right away. Little League sent a registered letter to Kirkland on March 1 giving him until March 31 to reimburse the missing money.
• In February of 2016 East Region Director for Little League Don Soucy described Kirkland as uncooperative in an email correspondence with Dreckmann, and advised her that she would likely not hear anything directly from him, either. In that same email, Soucy advised Dreckmann to create a plan to boost the District Fund including a fee for each of the 17 leagues to help replenish the money that had been drained by Kirkland from the District Fund.

• Dreckmann reported to the District Board on March 8 that Eastern Region Director Donald Soucy had asked her not to go to the police until after the March 31 deadline. She also informed the board that the last financial statement provided to Williamsport on behalf of the District was in 2010.

• On April 8, Dreckmann and District 1 board member Steve Heffelfinger filed a report with Derry Police requesting an investigation into the missing funds, explaining that a total of nearly $18,000 had been drained from the District 1 bank account between Oct. and Dec. of 2015. This was done, in part, because they were told that to make a claim for the loss through their insurance policy, they needed a police report. They later found out they were not covered by insurance for this type of loss.

• Derry Police Det. Scott Tomkins advised Dreckmann on April 13 that the $465.13 Kirkland gave as a donation to Little League in December would be refunded by Little League to the account.
• Little League officials told Dreckmann that in response to the letter, Kirkland said via email that he had donated the money to charity, and would not be reimbursing them.
• Kirkland says that he never made any such statement to Little League officials about making donations, or whether he would reimburse the money.

• On April 17 officials from the Eastern Region of Little League attended a District 1 board meeting and advised the board that Little League International was not going to pursue the remaining $17,500. A majority vote of League presidents in attendance supported not pursuing legal action against Kirkland or restitution.
• On April 18 Dreckmann on behalf of the board asked police to suspend the investigation.
  

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