ANTI-DRUG CHARITY GAVE $315,732 TO ITS BOSS EXPENSES

Taxpayer-Funded Rock In Prevention's Pat McManus Received
Compensation For Making Cds, Plus A Salary

A controversial, publicly financed Des Moines charity routed $315,732
to its executive director last year - an amount that represents
almost 39 percent of the agency's total spending.

The money was paid after state lawmakers agreed to directly finance
Rock In Prevention Inc. with $600,000 in Iowa taxpayers' money. The
Legislature's action enabled the charity to bypass the normal,
grant-application process through which private organizations
typically must compete for public money.

Rock In Prevention is a nonprofit agency that stages high-energy
music performances in schools to discourage children from using
tobacco, alcohol and drugs. Newly disclosed federal tax records show
that the agency spent a total of $804,000 in the 2004-05 fiscal year.
Those tax records also show how the money was spent:

Executive director Pat McManus was paid $123,309 in salary and benefits.

McManus' for-profit venture, Mission From God Records, is a
sole-proprietorship that collected $192,423 from the tax-exempt
charity. Most of the payments represent compensation for compact
discs of McManus' inspirational music, which are given away to
children in public and private schools. Rock In Prevention officials
say that 23 percent of the payments to Mission From God - which would
amount to about $44,257 - represent a "profit" for McManus after the
costs of writing, composing, arranging and producing the music are met.

The charity collected more than $1.2 million in government grants,
including direct appropriations from state lawmakers, between July
2001 and June 2005. During that same period, the charity paid
$658,063 to Mission From God, and McManus' annual salary-and-benefits
package rose from $92,000 to $123,309 - an increase of 34 percent.

In recent years, the government has been Rock In Prevention's single
biggest contributor. The biggest private donor has been Don Lamberti,
the father of Senate Republican Co-President Jeff Lamberti of Ankeny.
The senior Lamberti is founder of Casey's General Stores and last
year gave the charity $98,392 in Casey's common stock.

McManus referred all questions about the agency to his sister, Lore
Solo, who is a Rock In Prevention board member. Solo could not be
reached for comment Friday.

Rock In Prevention has existed for 17 years and is popular with Iowa
children and parents who enjoy the live performances and CDs that are
infused with a strong anti-drug message.

But five years ago, a lack of scientific data to support the agency's
claims of effectiveness prompted federal officials to withdraw
financing from Rock In Prevention. That led to a taxpayer-financed
study, conducted by Iowa State University, of the charity's efforts
to keep kids off drugs.

As The Des Moines Register reported last summer, the $298,000 study
raised questions pertaining to conflicts of interest.

Much of the money for the study was given to Rock In Prevention,
which worked as a subcontractor on the study of its own
effectiveness. For more than a year, the two lead researchers on the
study worked for Rock In Prevention as unpaid staff members, offering
advice on issues such as research, programming and grants.

One of the two researchers also served as an honorary board member at
Rock In Prevention. The other owned a company that was paid $3,700 by
Rock In Prevention for construction work at the Rock In Prevention
office. Also, one of the other people who worked on the study was a
former paid employee of Rock In Prevention.

Before the study was completed, lead researcher Jerry Stubben
acknowledged last year that he was redesigning the program even as he
was evaluating it. He said McManus was changing the program to
conform to the redesign.

"To be blunt, I can make Pat do whatever I want him to do because we
are evaluating it," Stubben said.

Stubben's study concluded that his redesigned Rock In Prevention -
unlike other programs Stubben had publicly dismissed as "crap" - was
effective. Those findings can now be used to clear the way for
infusions of additional public money through government grants.

Last year, after the Register published a series of articles about
Rock In Prevention, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration, which paid for the ISU study, said it
intended to review the manner in which the study was conducted.

On Friday, SAMHSA officials said the review of the ISU study was
conducted by the university itself, which then proposed "corrective
action" that SAMHSA approved.

The corrective action addresses three issues: the need for Stubben to
resign as an honorary board member at Rock In Prevention; the need
for new accounting controls within the university's research
institute; and the need for additional training on matters related to
conflicts of interest.

Some issues, such as the study's reliance on a former Rock In
Prevention employee to gather data, were deemed "minor violations"
that weren't worthy of additional action, SAMHSA officials said.

University officials were unable to provide information on the matter
last week. Stubben said Friday that he has resigned from the
charity's board but isn't aware of other actions that were recommended.

"The only thing I ever got said, 'Everything's fine, let's move on,'
" he said. "I did get a thing from (federal officials) that said
everything was cool."

Rock In Prevention board members emphasize that the organization
relies heavily on private contributions that aren't tied to taxpayer
money. Tax records show that in the 2004-05 fiscal year, the charity
received private contributions from six entities: board chairman Dick
Jacobson, the Jacobson Foundation, Don Lamberti, Iowa Broadcasters,
Variety Club and Hy-Vee Food Stores. Those donations accounted for 34
percent of Rock In Prevention's total income.

[Sidebar]

About Rock In Prevention

The anti-drug program Rock In Prevention is popular with Iowa
schoolchildren. For more than 15 years, Pat McManus has traveled to
schools around the state and used music to try to persuade students
not to use drugs, tobacco or alcohol. "When kids learn through song
and listen to the music over and over, it really reinforces what we
are teaching," he told the Register in 2001.

According to his Web site, www.rockinprevention.org, McManus is a
national certified addictions counselor who graduated from Upper Iowa
University with a bachelor's degree in business management and a
minor in marketing.

But some aspects of the Rock In Prevention program have generated controversy:

The agency has received more than $1.2 million in public money, but
more than a third of the money spent each year goes to the executive
director and his for-profit venture, Mission From God Records. The
executive director's family members have served as paid staff and
board members.

After federal officials cut off financing for Rock In Prevention due
to questions over the program's effectiveness, state lawmakers
stepped in and awarded the agency $600,000 in public money through a
no-compete contract.

Taxpayers were billed $298,000 for a recent evaluation of the
agency's effectiveness. But that study was conducted by researchers
who previously worked for Rock In Prevention. The lead researcher
redesigned the program, then evaluated it and declared it a success.