CALLING ON AUDITORS

The Urban Affairs Coalition nonprofit (UAC) uses
The Hierarchy as its preferred no-bid sole source
City of Philadelphia minority staffing company,
payroll processor, Application Server Host, eMail service provider, software installer, and Help Desk team.*
The Hierarchy is an LLC physically located in Delaware. The Hierarchy hires staff for UAC from its Maryland location.
The Hierarchy lists a PO Box as its business address in Pennsylvania. Mail to that PO Box is returned as undeliverable.
UAC recommends their Program Partners to also use The Hierarchy as their email provider and Application Server vendor.

**tax evasion alert**

The Hierarchy is owned by Jacques Latoison who owes the state of Delaware $83,000 in unpaid personal taxes. The Hierarchy has owed the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the City of Philadelphia $10,090.50 in unpaid business taxes since 2015. Latoison stated he was in a court hearing with the “Feds” on 4/4/2023 for unpaid taxes; it is unknown if the Feds tax problem is personal, business, or both. There are now reports of past or present tax liens in FL of $68,377 and MD totalling $153,908 that need to be confirmed.

UAC legal confirms The Hierarchy did not issue 1099s. The DOL requires any pay to be reported to Child Support enforcement immediately. What if the money UAC deposits to The Hierarchy to pay for labor is not classified as labor and the workers owe child support?

*white-collar crime alert*

The Hierarchy has allegedly embezzled and misappropriated a significant amount of payroll money deposited by UAC into its business account.

Payments for timesheet labor amounting to $35,406 aged 1 year 4 months 15 days is missing. Payment for the mission-critical Economic Development Projects (EDP) Contractor Compliance custom software database totaling $27,450 is past due. The Hierarchy was also paid for an additional 957 billable hours totaling $86,130, for timesheet hours the laborer submitted, that Latoison has seized as payment for reparations. Payments for those hours are due; unjust enrichment is unacceptable.

The victim notified EDP C-Suite management, to whom the worker reported, that The Hierarchy had refused to issue paychecks for sixteen weeks and had bounced a paycheck. EDP Management provided copies of the approved timesheets and financial records from NetSuite proving UAC deposited the missing payroll into The Hierarchy bank account.
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A written contract evidencing UAC engaging The Hierarchy for staff augmentation and payroll processing does not seem to exist.
UAC allegedly charged the timesheet payroll to the City of Philadelphia General Fund as COTS software, not as Staff Augmentation.
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It is unknown if the industry standard CBC (complete background check) was run on The Hierarchy.
The Hierarchy is compensated for providing the services of a “Help Desk team” when allegedly no such team exists.
It seems that this money which has been allegedly embezzled and misappropriated probably originated from a $10M annual General Fund entrusted to UAC by the City of Philadelphia.

UAC and EDP are most likely joint employers of the victim. UAC, EDP, IEDS, and The Hierarchy all refer in writing to the
victim’s compensation as PAYCHECKS.
EDP controlled the worker’s workload and schedule; Latoison rarely interacted with the worker as he works for several other non-UAC clients and directed the worker to report to EDP and “cover for him” to mask his frequent absence.
When the CAO questioned the workers hours and accomplishments to approve the timesheets, Latoison would reach out to the worker for answers claiming he was physically sitting in the CAOs office with the CAO because he had no idea what EDP assigned.
The EDP manager is presented to the public on the UAC website as an Executive of UAC EDP. A person by the same name is also listed as a City of Philadelphia Information Technology Director. The same person owns Infinite Economic Development Solutions (IEDS). Really crazy that a person with the same name is a Grant Coordinator for all governmental funding (city, county, state, federal) for the Austin School District in TX.

Who authorized The Hierarchy to brand the UAC EDP Contract Compliance Database as its own copyrighted database for The Hierarchy soliciting business directly with current UAC EDP Construction company partners as a service of The Hierarchy?
Is there no UAC EDP contract in place with The Hierarchy specifying who owns the programming and code of the unpaid victim?

UAC pays IEDS as a vendor for EDP work.
IEDS, like The Hierarchy, submits its employees hours for payment to UAC on timesheets.
The IEDS minority workers are issued W2s; their paychecks are not vanishing or being labeled as payment for fake COTS software.
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But UAC supposedly charged the work that was performed by the victim for EDP (aka IEDS) to the General Fund.
The Hierarchy stated they pay their family members and college youth to do UAC work under the table with no confidentiality agreements.
Latoison was reportedly discussing he was paid a bonus by Comcast for using his stepson as his Comcast representative on UAC Comcast work.
Where are the auditors?

Is this another case like Strong City in Baltimore?

Strong City Baltimore Unpaid Vendors

Over 80 organizations trust UAC with their financials.
Numerous vendors are experiencing payment issues.
Private donors are voicing concerns that donations are not being acknowledged for months. Is your invoice or paycheck or donation next?
*UAC has a three-bids process for contracts >$7,500 (except for hosting, internet, and phone). The rules are the same for everyone. Unless the program is privy to the “process they can use to avoid the three-bids process.” The Hierarchy has had the UAC contract since 2006, never changing their rates, and goes publically ballistic if a partner challenges its rates. The cost of hosting has decreased significantly over the years due to technological advancements and increased competition in the industry. Is UAC overpaying The Hierarchy for hosting services? UAC is using the “sole source” standard as defined by the commonwealth of PA, not the City sole source justification.

UAC management and legal is aware The Hierarchy refuses to issue its workers 1099s.
The victim has learned Latoison and perhaps UAC may have reported the worker’s paychecks to the IRS as a business expense for the purchase of COTS software, not labor. If true, the implications of tax fraud are huge; the worker has no license to resell COTS software.
The worker will also be responsible for sales tax (including on the “missing” payroll) and possibly fined for selling fake COTS software across state lines.
Legitimate COTS software has licenses. Where are the licenses? Are the licenses in NetSuite along with the signed timesheets authorizing payment?

It is unclear if this alleged embezzlement and misappropriation of funds has been reported to the the state of Pennsylvania or the City of Philadelphia.
It is unknown if the UAC Board of Directors is aware of these alleged issues.
It is not clear whose insurance provider will cover the admitted losses and make the victim whole.

Jacques Latoison stated he is the victim of Bank redlining and is justified in repurposing payments to bootstrap his organization.
Jacques Latoison acknowledges the victim is “absolutely due payment” but continues to deny UAC has deposited funds identified as payment for the worker.

UAC corporate legal claims that the victim, hired to work directly for EDP as an hourly worker paid for upon UAC approving timesheets, was changed to a “vendor” of fake COTS software at the point the payroll was seemingly embezzled. Presumably, the victim would have been notified of the change in the contract. How can UAC possibly use timesheets to approve payment for fake COTS software?
Where are the auditors?
The same UAC legal team and the CAO requires the following paperwork to legally classify the victim as a vendor:
1) Consultant Questionnaire – required for City contract reporting
2) Swif form – required for Worker Comp Liability reporting and insurance coverage
3) UAC form Consultant Agreement – required to establish a legal relationship between the Vendor and UAC to support proof of business relationship and scope of services
4) W9 – Required for IRS guidelines for vendor payments
5) Fees Schedule/Schedule of Services (Consultant Agreement)

In the absence of the above legal paperwork, UAC might be responsible for misclassifying the victim as a subcontractor and might have to pay fines and all of the victim’s income taxes.
The worker’s final paycheck was legally required to be issued 14 days after being fired in retaliation for asking to be paid and reporting the suspected embezzlement.

Why did the CAO of UAC not require this paperwork when the CAO personally assigned the worker the data migration tasks, even interacting on weekends, and sung praises about the quality of her work?
No other invoices are processed without this paperwork. Unless, as Latoison told the worker when hired, UAC could not show they were paying a Caucasian for compliance reasons.
EDP agreed verbally and in writing they would not allow The Hierarchy to fire the Whistleblower, the missing wages would be forthcoming, and they would keep the worker on board for up to eight years as a vendor of the city.