Charities Challenge OPM on CFC Change

The Office of Personnel Management's decision last year to drop the requirement that charities in the Combined Federal Campaign spend 25 percent or less of their total revenue on administrative and fund-raising expenses is running into stiff opposition from charities themselves. The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that Community Health Charities of America has taken its fight against the rule change to Capitol Hill, sending letters to House Government Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and ranking member Tom Davis, R-Va. OPM has acknowledged that a "significant majority" of the hundreds of comments it received when it proposed the new regulation opposed the idea of removing the limit on administrative costs. But the agency says it doesn't have the staff to enforce the old requirement, and told Thomas G. Bognanno, president of Community Health Charities of America last week that the idea of going back on its decision "will not be considered."