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RALEIGH — A foundation tied to a powerful group of African American legislators used a news release Friday to try to put to rest questions that have dogged it for much of this year.

Rep. Alma Adams, a Greensboro Democrat, said the N.C. Legislative Black Caucus has as its primary purpose distributing scholarships and holding an annual educational weekend that focuses on the needs of the minority community, not dealing with political speculation.

But the foundation did indeed get pulled into the wake of ethics questions this year, although it was never accused of doing anything illegal.

The foundation is tied to the N.C. Legislative Black Caucus, the eight senators and 20 representatives who are African American. It is a politically potent group which can sometimes block or help pass controversial pieces of legislation.

By January, ethics scandals involving legislators had prompted the General Assembly to tighten rules on lobbying and how members can raise money.

It was at just that point that Adams became chairwoman of both the caucus and the foundation and that questions arose about whether the groups' fundraising practices complied with the new laws.

"I didn't want to spend my entire first year doing these types of things, but that's what happened," Adams said.

In both an interview Friday and through the news release, Adams said that an audit and a state ethics opinion have cleared up most if not all questions lobbed at the groups this year so they can try to begin 2008 free from scrutiny.

Reaction to the group's release was hard to come by Friday afternoon with much of official Raleigh out of town for the holidays.

Bad press for the foundation and the caucus began soon after Adams took the reins of both organizations and ordered audits of the foundation's books from 2005 and 2006. It was a step that prompted speculation among some at the General Assembly that money had gone missing or was misused.

Speculation ramped up when a newspaper reported that $55,000 that the group had raised in 2005 for Hurricane Katrina victims had not been distributed to relief agencies until earlier this year.

Adams, however, maintained the audits were not an unusual step and that nothing inappropriate had happened.

Friday she said those audits showed no missing or misappropriated money, although they did make recommendations for changes to the group's policies and procedures.

Among the recommended steps the group has taken are hiring an outside accounting firm to do its books and undertaking an annual audit.

Adams declined to release copies of the 2005 and 2006 audits. "We're going to keep them internally for now; that's what the board wants to do," she said.

By law, members of the General Assembly can only raise $4,000 per election from any one donor and cannot accept contributions from lobbyists or while the legislature is in session.

The caucus foundation faces no such restriction, despite its close ties to legislators. And although the group never released a list of its donors, campaign finance reports and programs from events held by the group showed that it raised money from banks, industry groups and others with issues pending before the legislature.

Adams said she asked the N.C. State Ethics Commission, an independent government agency, for an opinion as to whether the group's activities complied with ethics laws. That opinion was reviewed and approved by the General Assembly's Joint Legislative Ethics Committee.

"The advisory opinion confirms that both lobbyists and legislators can serve on the Foundation Board," Adams wrote in her news release.

However, she notes that the ethics commission said that a majority of the board members could not be legislators and she said the board's membership had been expanded to 21 members, 13 of who were not legislators.

Adams said she would release a list of board members as soon as possible, but that her foundation staff were off on Friday. She declined to release the ethics opinion, saying that the commission or the committee would have to do so.

Rep. Rick Glazier, co-chairman of the Legislative Ethics Committee, said he could not release his committee's opinion. "I can't acknowledge that there has even been an opinion," Glazier said.

The state's ethics laws require that the joint ethics committee send its work back to the N.C. Ethics Commission, where it will be redacted and then released to the public.

Officials with the Ethics Commission did not return phone calls Friday afternoon.

When asked if the foundation would continue to raise money from those with interests before the legislature, Adams said the group was still reviewing its fundraising practices.

"We're working on what our strategy will be for fundraising. That's not complete yet," Adams said. "But we're going to obey whatever ethics opinions and the law say we need to do."

The foundation had suspended much of its activity in 2007. However, it plans to resume its annual educational weekend on June 27 and 28, Adams said. Also, the group will again offer scholarships, and new policies prohibit that money from going to the families of foundation board members or legislators.

"I want to try and make up for lost time now," Adams said, noting that the educational weekend, focusing on education and health, will help establish the caucus' 2009 agenda.

"I think we're at a point now where the foundation can move very rapidly to get back to its work," Adams said.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com