COVINGTON — The director of the Northern Kentucky Community Center was stripped of his financial duties Tuesday night by a board scrambling to repair the center's budget and its reputation.

        Rollins Davis, executive director since 1994, has been removed from “overseeing the financial affairs of the center” until further notice, the board said after a two-hour meeting.

        Mr. Davis will retain his salary and the title of executive director, said Steve Wolnitzek, attorney for the board. But from now on, only board Treasurer Darin Schmidt, an accountant with Deloitte & Touche in Cincinnati, will have the authority to sign checks. A committee of five board members, including Mr. Schmidt, will oversee other financial matters.

        “The board of directors will continue to work along with the executive director to correct, as quickly as possible, any and all problems facing the center,” the board's statement said.

        The NKCC is the dominant social-services agency in Covington's African-American community. It provides day care, after-school recreation and housing services out of its offices in the old Lincoln-Grant School.

        According to records and interviews, the center has failed to pay rent on three apartments for homeless families even though it receives thousands of dollars to do so through an emergency housing grant from the city of Covington.

        The community center owes $7,976 in back rent — and has not made a payment since October — on units at the City Heights housing complex, said Bill Simon, director of the Housing Authority of Covington.

        Covington has been giving the center about $791 a month to pay for the units, which rent for a total of $684 a month. Mr. Davis regularly sends the city a letter requesting the funds, part of an annual grant of $9,500, said Tom Waters, a city accountant.

        City accountants are supposed to visit the center every year to make sure money is being used properly, but they have not done so in about two years, he said.

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