Foundation appoints new treasurer

Darcy Bingham has years of federal expertise

Bingham comes to the foundation with 15 years of fiscal and technical experience with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where she is a branch chief in FEMA’s information technology services division, overseeing federal budgets that can total more than $200 million per year. She has a master’s degree in accounting from James Madison University and became a certified public accountant in 1993.

An ad hoc committee recommended Bingham over two other candidates. The board unanimously approved her appointment Dec. 6.

‘‘It was such overwhelming qualifications,” said board president Bob Hydorn. ‘‘Rather than a board member being an interim treasurer, it becomes a situation where someone ... [can] come in and concentrate on just the finances, rather than the finances and everything else that’s going on.”

The treasurer’s primary responsibility is to provide outside oversight of the foundation’s finances. Working with the foundation’s executive vice president and the director of finance, Bingham will steer policy on major investment and audit issues and will help craft key fiscal recommendations to the board. As a non-voting member of the foundation board, the treasurer prepares monthly reports for the board and has a lead role on the foundation’s resident Audit Committee.

Bingham says she is still familiarizing herself with the $7 million-plus annual budget that the foundation runs as essentially an umbrella homeowners association, but expects to take the shift well in stride.

And though she admits to being a newcomer to foundation affairs, the mother of three college-age children is not new to activism in the Village.

‘‘I’ve been volunteering with my kids’ activities for so long, then they grew up and I wanted to stay involved in the community,” she said.

For several years, long-time board members alternated time as interim treasurers. Then in 2006, Village resident Lois Campbell held the position before becoming comptroller, then interim finance director then consultant.

Current board member Katherine Gray took on the treasurer responsibilities shortly after she was elected to the board in March. After vocal opposition from residents over concern that she worked for a bank that had a large account with the foundation, she agreed in June to step down from that role.

Foundation leaders have been especially intent on regaining resident trust after more than a year of uneasiness. There were budget deficit in 2005 and 2006, executive vice president John R. Zakian and finance director Geraldine Barber resigned in 2006, and in 2007 it was reported that 2007 that a former foundation employee had embezzled at least $140,000.

The board then tightened the foundation’s expenses and record-keeping and balanced the budget by raising resident fees and making deep cuts in how much the foundation contributed to its reserve funds.

Former Gaithersburg City Manager David B. Humpton was hired to take the executive vice president position in November, and William Blum, former chief operating officer of the Washington County Public School System, took over as the new finance director in September.

The foundation ‘‘is in very safe hands with Dave and Bill,” Hydorn said. ‘‘The community is looking forward to 2008 and the forward direction we will take.”