Kelly Schwartz knew she wouldn't make it.
She had been told to drive a $250,000 state grant application 25 blocks through Baltimore's busiest downtown streets -- in five minutes, at lunchtime. The application was due at noon; she arrived at the state Department of Human Resources at 12:06.
Those six minutes eventually cost the Sexual Assault Recovery Center (SARC) its survival.
Ms. Schwartz's mad -- on April 19 was the flash point for months of problems that eventually doomed the Baltimore-based rape crisis center. The 22-year-old organization was beset with financial difficulties, management problems and in-fighting between administrators and board members. Staff members such as Ms. Schwartz often were left with the impossible task of keeping the center afloat.
The problems began well before April, according to interviews with board members, and current and former employees.
Late last year, the center's executive director was scrambling to meet the payroll -- sometimes using her own money -- but failed to tell board members about the financial crisis. This March, she resigned, and that left the center in the hands of board members who knew little about day-to-day operations -- including the importance of filing the $250,000 grant application on time.
In October, six months after the state rejected the late application and reopened bidding, the center had lost its primary source of funding. Now SARC, which has provided the city's sexual assault victims with a 24-hour hot line, volunteer support services and professional counseling, plans to close Dec. 31.
"Without those funds we simply didn't have the money to continue beyond the end of the year," said Peter D. Ward, president of the center's board of directors.
The agency's financial problems date to 1993. In the fiscal year ending in June 1993, SARC suffered a deficit close to $50,000, according to the organization's income tax return.
By October of that year, a $30,000 grant expired and then-executive director Cecelia Carroll could not pay employees. Instead of alerting the board, she chipped in $11,000 of her own money to meet the center's expenses. Mrs. Carroll did the same thing at the end of December, when a $100,000 grant ran out, putting in $16,000, she said.
Board members charge that she hid the center's financial problems until February. Mrs. Carroll acknowledges that she did not tell the board about the loans until the spring, but she said the no-interest loans symbolized her devotion to the center.
"The board is trying to make me a scapegoat," she said. "Whatever mistakes I made, I'm human. . . . I was committed to the organization. "
Mrs. Carroll said most board members were not as committed, failing to show up at meetings and refusing to donate their own time and money. "In a nonprofit, you either give, get or get off."
Mrs. Carroll said she thought if she could cover the payroll through the beginning of 1994, the center would recover its losses through fund-raisers and grants -- including the one from the Department of Human Resources. That grant made up nearly half of the center's public support.
At the end of March, Mrs. Carroll resigned but offered to stay on for several weeks to help the center write three grant proposals. Instead, she said, the board asked her to leave the next day.
Opinions about Mrs. Carroll's four-year tenure are mixed.
Former board president Sandy Douglas doesn't blame Mrs. Carroll for all of the center's financial problems. But she said Mrs. Carroll agreed to unrealistic goals that prevented the center from renewing a $100,000 Abell Foundation grant that ran out at the end of 1993.
"We put too much trust in [Mrs. Carroll] and gave her too much authority," Ms. Douglas said. "We lost touch with the day-to-day and left that up to Cecelia more than we should have."
But others, such as volunteer Cheryl Brandt, swear by Mrs. Carroll's abilities as an administrator.
"I know a lot of people who didn't like Cecelia, but she was extremely good at what she did," Ms. Brandt said. " The problems have been since they got rid of her."
The financial problems didn't go away. In April, after Mrs. Carroll resigned, the board received a $6,000 emergency grant from the city.
But the board scrapped the center's two spring fund-raising campaigns, including a phone-a-thon. Instead, it hired a consultant to write the $250,000 state grant proposal.
Several board members were unhappy with the consultant's work and agreed to rewrite the proposal. On April 19, they continued to work on the proposal with a secretary from the center -- triggering the hasty, unsuccessful -- to the state agency.
At the time, the center was the only city applicant for the state funds. But once the agency reopened the bid process, other organizations went after the state money. SARC lost out, triggering a financial crisis from which the center could not recover.
"If we had gotten that money, I honestly think we could have been able to pull the organization through," Mr. Ward said.
On Oct. 26, he announced that the center would close by the end of the year.
Still, sexual assault victims served by the center may not go without help.
The Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Center of Baltimore County could open an office in the city as early as Dec. 1. "We'll go where the need is," executive director Bonnie Ariano said.
Other city facilities exist, too. Children, families and adolescents can go to the Sexual Abuse Treatment Center at 2901 Druid Park Ave. Emergency services are available at Mercy Medical Center, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and University of Maryland Hospital.
But even if sexual assault victims have alternatives, SARC employees don't.
After 2 1/2 years with the organization, Ms. Schwartz was laid off Nov. 3 -- not because she failed to file the state grant application on time but because SARC is cutting its staff.
Ms. Schwartz said her experiences at the center have convinced her that she should find a new line of work.
"The issue is a really tough issue to deal with everyday, anyway," she said. "I'm not sure I want to stay in the field, but this is going to make me leave."