King of Prussia, PA:Business Leadership Organized for Catholic Schools (BLOCS) Chief Executive Officer Dave Rowan recently announced the promotions of Finance team members Kathleen Harvey to Controller and Joe Hoey to Development & Business Analyst, effective immediately.
“Over the past several years, BLOCS has experienced significant growth, with total assets approaching $100 million and total revenues exceeding $50 million,” remarks Ted Aicher, BLOCS’ Chief Financial Officer.
Aicher adds, “the substantial growth of our business has led to increased complexities due to the additional special purpose entities managed under our tax credit program. This expansion, coupled with the vastly increased workload in recent months with regard to COVID-19 Emergency Aid Tuition programs, has necessitated an agility in handling greater responsibility with little hands-on supervision.”
Both Harvey and Hoey have risen to the challenge.
Kathleen Harvey joined the BLOCS staff in 2013 as a Senior Financial Analyst, responsible for the organization’s accounts payable/receivable, financial and fund reporting, audit preparation, as well as handling deposits, payment processing and bank reconciliations.
Harvey’s ‘can-do’ attitude and willingness to take on increased executive leadership of daily finance and accounting operations, rendered her a prime candidate for promotion to Controller. In her new role, Harvey will manage the financial aspects of the tax credit program’s special purpose entities, (LLC’s) as well as leading the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) Economically Disadvantaged Schools program; projects for which she has already assumed responsibility and in which she has excelled.
Harvey led the Board of Directors’ Scholarship Committee through the process to remove the “red tape” associated with the organization’s Emergency Scholarship Fund (ESF), to process and fulfill more than 2,200 emergency scholarships requested in only a few months,in response to COVID-19 related hardships. This demand exponentially eclipses the previous number of scholarship requests –less than 200 for the entire year.
Harvey will also serve as the team’s primary contact for the firm appointed to handle the annual audit.
Joe Hoey has accelerated tremendously in his growth since joining the finance department as an intern in 2017. Rising quickly to a full-time role asStaff Accountant and System Administrator, Hoey has emerged as a self-starter, quick to learn, develop and implement new reporting systems and technologies which are critical for both the team’s accounting and business development efforts.
Under little staff supervision, Hoey self-trained on all aspects of the company’s Salesforce CRM, resulting inthe development of an entirely new and timely tax credit reporting system.
“This innovation has become an incredibly valuable resource to the schools whom we support” states Aicher.
His leadership in educating himself on all aspects of the EITC/OSTC programs has qualified Hoey as a critical member of the business development team as well, fielding and answering donor questions regarding tax credits, while also assuming his own portfolio of corporate donors.
On the finance and accounting side, Hoey now leads the auditing process of the Tax Schedule K-1 (Form 1065), a cumbersome process in which Hoey has flourished – having successfully completed the preparation and processing of more than 1,000 donor tax forms with zero errors.
Hoey now assists Harvey with daily reconciliations between the CRM and General Ledger systems, ensuring operational efficiencies. This process includes the reconciliation of thousands of donor designations which are critical to BLOCS’ tax credit award process.
“Our team is stronger, nimbler and more efficient due to Kathleen and Joe’s invaluable contributions,” remarks Aicher.
BLOCS operates on a July 1 – June 30 fiscal year and announced staff promotions following the Board of Directors’ annual budget planning meeting in September.
About BLOCS: For more than forty years, Business Leadership Organized for Catholic Schools (BLOCS)has provided educational opportunities for children ages pre-K through 12th grade throughout the Philadelphia five county area and across the state of Pennsylvania. Viewed as the premiere scholarship organization in PA, BLOCS partners with more than 100 Archdiocesan and more than 300 private Catholic and non-Catholic schools to provide over 16,000 scholarships each year to families in need. BLOCS is the largest scholarship organization in the state to provide scholarships funded heavily through Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development’s Educational Improvement (EITC) and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC)Programs. BLOCS raises close to $50M annually in private and corporate donations for families in the greater Philadelphia area.
