Spartans fall prey to financial woes
If we didn’t know any better, a quick look Monday at the Web site of the Spartans Drum & Bugle Corps (www.spartansdbc.org) would suggest it was just another day in the life of this nationally renowned organization.
Visitors are still welcomed to the online home of the “5-time Gold Medal champions.”
A banner ad at the top of the page encourages current and potential members to register for this weekend’s January camp and open session.
And parents and volunteers are asked to attend a meeting next Sunday afternoon to discuss volunteer opportunities for the upcoming 2009 season.
Unfortunately, as we now know, all is not well with our local drum and bugle corps, which was founded more than 50 years ago to “offer young people quality educational and performance experiences in the area of performing arts,” according to its mission statement.
As we reported Saturday, the Spartans filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in late November of last year after experiencing a series of financial-related setbacks.
Under a Chapter 11 filing, a business or organization is able to remain in operation while working on a reorganization plan acceptable to its creditors and the court.
Based on records filed in state and federal courts:
• The New Hampshire Charitable Trusts Unit, a division of the state attorney general’s office, filed a petition Oct. 27 to remove the Spartans board of directors in Hillsborough County Superior Probate Court.
In that filing, the state accused the board of doing a poor job of auditing expenses and overseeing spending, as well as permitting the use of credit cards without appropriate documentation.
• Bank of New England filed notice that it had scheduled a Dec. 4 foreclosure sale for Spartans Hall, the organization’s home base at 73 E. Hollis St. As of November, the nonprofit organization was more than $39,000 behind in payments on its $811,000 mortgage with the bank.
The Spartans also owed nearly $140,000 in credit-card costs to Citizens Bank, and there appears to be some division among the family and extended family members who make up part of the board of directors.
• A Jan. 21 hearing has been scheduled for the bankruptcy court to review the status of the bankruptcy and the Spartans’ reorganization plans. At that time, the court also will hear from debtors and other interested parties in the case.
If this all sounds rather dire, that is the precise word used by Todd Fahey, the attorney appointed by Hillsborough County Superior Probate Court to review the organization’s financial predicament.
“Absent substantial debt forgiveness, an infusion of cash to satisfy this debt, or a discharge of most (or all) of the Corps’ debt in bankruptcy, it does not seem likely that the Corps will have the means to pay its debts and return to solvency,” Fahey wrote.
All of which strikes us as a crying shame for an organization that has devoted more than half a century to building character in the region’s children and young adults.
This is a group that has participated in five presidential inaugural parades (Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush twice), earned five Drum Corps International gold medals and four DCI world championships.
Perhaps more importantly, it has devoted countless hours to teaching the values of self-confidence, dedication and teamwork to thousands of young people in Greater Nashua.
We wish the organization the resiliency of the Greek warriors in its name as it tries to get its financial house in order in these challenging economic times.
