MILFORD – Prompted by complaints from parents involved in the Milford Mustangs youth football and cheerleading club, the state Attorney General’s Charitable Trusts Unit will review the organization’s 2009 financial report and bylaws.

Anne Edwards, director of the Charitable Trusts Unit, said her office has received several complaints from parents and is looking at the overall health of the organization.

Parents have reported a deficit of $14,000, shoddy record keeping of cash receipts and an air of intimidation by the group’s leadership.

Edwards said she’s giving the Mustangs a six-month extension to file their 2009 financial report, but that it isn’t uncommon for an organization to ask for such an extension.

On April 19, a representative from the Charitable Trusts Unit met with about 20 parents, club members, past members and representatives of the New Hampshire Youth Football & Spirit Conference to talk about the Mustangs without the board of directors present.

“Parents/members are happy being part of the Mustangs – governance is the problem,” according to a letter from the AG’s Charitable Trust Unit sent to the Mustangs’ board of directors.

Among other complaints, members said they were concerned about the Mustangs’ financial state of affairs and a lack of response to their multiple concerns.

“Based on the number of people that attended this meeting, sent in complaints or placed calls to this office, it is clear that there are some serious concerns within the organization, to the point where it may cease to exist if membership continues to decline,” Christine L. Gauntt, an investigative paralegal in the Charitable Trusts Unit, wrote in a May 21 letter.

People at the meeting said membership is declining, and because of the way the bylaws are written, there is no way for members to replace current officers, she wrote.

Attendees also said they’re worried about being reprimanded or terminated if they don’t follow through on officers’ requests and said members aren’t allowed to attend most board meetings.

Kirk Palladino, who said he is Milford Mustangs’ acting president while his brother, president Ed Palladino, is on medical leave, said the people who are complaining to the Charitable Trusts Unit are pursuing a vendetta.

“No one in the organization has done anything wrong,” he said.

If the club does not have as much money as other clubs, he said, it’s because Ed Palladino gives out about 20 full scholarships each year to needy children.

There are about 172 children in the program, and only about 14 were at the meeting, he said, and some of them haven’t been with the program for years.

“A charity’s bylaws have to conform to New Hampshire laws” said Edwards, to make sure decision making isn’t “left in the hands of a few individuals.”

Under state law, all charitable nonprofit organizations, with the exception of churches, are required to register with and report to the attorney general.

The group’s board of directors will host a public forum for the general membership during the first 30 minutes of the July and October regular board meetings “with prior notification of subject matter communicated to the president within 48 hours of the meeting,” according to the Mustangs website, www.milford mustangs.org. It’s unclear when the July meeting is or was scheduled.

The Mustangs have been registered with the state since April 28, 2006.

They’re open to children from Milford, Wilton and Lyndeborough.

Kathy Cleveland can be reached at 673-3100, ext. 21, or kcleveland@cabinet.com.