Investigation of Queer Works CEO stretches beyond Palm Springs, Riverside County officials confirm

An investigation into the CEO of a Palm Springs-based nonprofit for alleged misuse of taxpayer funds goes well beyond city limits, The Post has learned, and involves much more than the $700,000 in question here.

When Riverside County approved more than $1.6 million in funding over the course of 15 months starting in June 2021 for Queer Works, what was then a fledgling non-profit organization, it thought the funds would go toward street outreach for unhoused people and rental assistance for victims of domestic violence. 

However, after staff began to notice what were described as “discrepancies in the invoices and documentation” it received from the CEO of the organization, Jacob Rostovsky, Riverside County Director of Communications Brooke Federico confirmed Wednesday that the matter was turned over to the Auditor Controller’s Office, which then referred the situation to county attorneys. 

Eventually, the concerns found their way to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, which is now investigating them, just as it’s doing with similar concerns raised in Palm Springs.

At issue in Palm Springs is the fact a Universal Basic Income (UBI) program the city helped Queer Works launch and fund in 2022 had mostly failed to be delivered as promised by the time questions about the program were finally addressed in 2023.

Documents show Rostovsky had billed for and received the entire $700,000 allotted by the City Council — an initial $200,000 and later $500,000 — despite an understanding that most of the funds would be set aside for direct payments to program participants.

The issue was first reported by The Post on July 19. On Tuesday, City Manager Scott Stiles released details of new measures and more rigorous vetting he will propose to the City Council in hopes of preventing similar lapses in accounting at City Hall.

County money trail

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors first approved funding for Queer Works on June 29, 2021, allocating $283,600 for homeless street outreach. This was part of a $31 million pool received from the 2020 CARES Act. 

In January 2022, the county provided an additional $150,660 for the same project, totaling $434,260, which surpassed the amount given to the city of San Jacinto.

The funds were distributed over a year, from September 2021 to September 2022. Queer Works, through a program Rostovsky called The TransPower Project, aimed to conduct street outreach to the unhoused in the Coachella Valley. 

No evidence of The TransPower Project exists today, and its website domain has expired. The county could not confirm any work being done by Rostovsky under that project’s name and suggested a public records request might turn up additional information.

During the funding process, priority was given to service providers aiding marginalized groups disproportionately affected by homelessness. Queer Works, focusing on the transgender and non-binary community, was thus prioritized.

In May 2022, the supervisors approved an additional $416,913 for Queer Works for rental assistance to domestic violence victims. None of these funds were released. Later, in October 2022, the county approved $767,479 in reprogrammed federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funds for the same purpose, but only $198,000 was disbursed.

According to county documents, the HUD funds had already been assigned to two different non-profits between June 2021 and June 2022, with both nonprofits eventually withdrawing from the project.

To meet the HUD grant deadline of April 30, 2023, the county sought a new recipient. Queer Works stepped in, and by August, agreements were drafted and later approved in October for the organization to take over the project.

No organizational framework?

A funding application from Queer Works dated November 2021 notes that the organization did not yet have a chief financial officer, but did have a chief operating officer, Bruce Weiss.

Weiss did not return a request for comment. However, on his LinkedIn profile, he lists Queer Works as a former employer, noting that he worked there from July 2021 to January 2022, a start date that aligns with the time Queer Works was approved for its first county grant.

In outlining his work responsibilities for the organization, he reveals that when he joined the organization, it appeared unprepared for the level of funding it was receiving.

“[T]here was no concrete organizational framework in place when I joined,” Weiss wrote, going on to say that he developed human resources and financing policies and bylaws “from scratch” to lower the risk of “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Weiss also stated that his grant-writing and fund development expertise “earned the organization hefty grants in the very early months of its existence.” He accomplished this, he said, by “strategically aligning grant proposals with the funder requests and requirements.”

Weiss explained that he recommended the organization expand its mission to include additional communities in need.

“I course corrected … and portrayed the organization’s potential to cater to all communities, LGBQ and transgender alike,” he wrote. “By doing so, we qualified for LGBT-reserved funds.”

In 2022, when Rostovsky was making his case for funding from Palm Springs for the UBI program, he listed Riverside County as one of his references, telling councilmembers he had already received “almost $450,000” from the county and that through his work with the county he had already set up “a really great way to be accountable and to do our books.”

It is unclear whether the city contacted Riverside County, or any of the other references Rostovsky provided, including the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, and the Illinois Department of Corrections. 

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