The Willow Glen Resident

BPA board failed to report missing money

As much as $8,000 is unaccounted for after the 1996 Founders Day fair

By Cecily Barnes

When the Willow Glen Business and Professional Association met earlier this month to discuss next year's Founders Day celebration, a skeleton fell out of the boardroom closet: The books had never been balanced, and money--up to $8,000--was believed to be missing.

The Willow Glen Resident un-earthed the coverup after making a public-records request while reporting on a series of upcoming Founders Day meetings. A financial report obtained from the Office of Cultural Affairs showed Founders Day 1996 turned a profit of $10,700, though WGBPA representatives had reported that the event lost money when they cancelled the Sunday portion of the event this year.

After The Resident obtained the report, organizers acknowledged what had happened in September 1996.

After former manager Mary McLane suspected money was missing, she called a meeting of the board members involved in the event two weeks after the 1996 Founders Day; what followed was an attempt by the board to confirm that the money was missing, figure out who took it and decide what to do about the situation.

McLane said she thought money was missing because of a large discrepancy between the projected revenues from beverage sales and the actual deposit.

"We knew how many kegs of beer had been bought, and when you multiply that by how many drinks were sold, you have the amount that should have been made. It's usually off by about 5 percent, but it was off by a lot more," McLane said. "Some people thought at first it was stolen beverages, but 20 kegs of beer would have had to disappear. It didn't seem plausible to me that that could have happened, especially since there were police on the street."

The Resident obtained invoices that verified McLane's contention that the figures were off. Receipts from Bottomley Distributing and Joseph George Company indicated beverage sales should have made the association approximately $25,000. However WGBPA's check registry shows that the group deposited $17,212 for Founders Day beverage sales.

Board members discussed the discrepancy in a closed meeting but could not ascertain what had happened. At one point McLane suggested filing a police report, but some board members argued against reporting the shortfall because they said there wasn't enough evidence, McLane said.

"Those of us who wanted to go further with it were very frustrated," McLane said. "We wanted to go above my bosses and call the cops."

According to current business manager Demetri Rizos, who attended the meeting, many scenarios were thrown around to explain the discrepancy. None definitively proved that money was missing or that anybody was responsible, he said.

"It was a two-day event, and the beer was left overnight. Someone could have stolen it," Rizos said. "Or it could have been a mistake on the invoice. It could have been anything."

Several board members told The Resident that they are still not convinced money was missing.

"Mary anticipated money was missing based on her projections, but I think her projections weren't accurate," board member Bob Waligore said. "She didn't account for things such as whether there's too much foam and people pour it off or how much waste there is."

Board members at that meeting agreed to remain quiet about the possible discrepancy and to concentrate on the future. Inevitably, the incident came back to haunt them.

"The board members didn't feel there was enough information to confirm money was missing. They had no explanation for the discrepancy," McLane said. "So we all agreed to keep tighter tabs on what happened to the money in the future and to look into how other festivals handled money."

Everything at the Willow Glen business office was fine for six months after the private meetings until the Office of Cultural Affairs, which gave a $6,000 grant for Founders Day, requested a final financial report in March, which had not been done.

"It was the treasurer's responsibility to produce a final report on last year's Founders Day," McLane said. "She never did."

According to Rizos, during Kerry Nuovo's final days as treasurer of the association, much of her time was spent dealing with personal matters.

But now the OCA needed the report, so Rizos called his predecessor, McLane, and the two put together a statement and turned it in to the OCA. Both McLane and Rizos say the other put together the majority of the report.

"I'm sure Demetri and I used estimates to do that report," McLane said. "We were just looking at the check register and deposits."

The report they filed to OCA stated that beverage sales from the 1996 Founders Day brought in a $25,000 profit despite the fact the deposit amount reported in the registry was nearly $8,000 less.

"[The $25,000] was reflecting the total beverage that was consumed. It reflects total consumption," McLane said.

Four more quiet months passed after the filing. Then Rizos made a cost analysis of the June Street Dance and calculated that a two-day Founders Day festival would put the business association in the red. After meetings and discussions, the board canceled the Sunday portion of Founders Day.

At that time, Rizos refused The Resident's request for financial reports on last year's Founders Day, saying no such report existed. WGBPA president Kathy McDonald also went on record denying that any sort of financial report existed. The Resident staff subsequently made a public-records request for the OCA Founders Day report.

"I didn't think of the grant application," Rizos said apologetically. "I honestly just didn't think of it, and I'm not sure the figures on that report were accurate, anyway. I wanted to use my own figures from the June street dance."

Despite the fact the OCA report showed the 1996 Founders Day brought in a profit, the board agreed to base its decision to eliminate the Sunday portion of Founders Day on the June 1996 street dance figures--saying they were more recent and would make a more accurate projection.

"I didn't use numbers from Founders Day last year because everything went up," Rizos said, citing the rising cost of walkie-talkies, golf carts, street cleanup and police officers. "The decision to cut back a day had nothing to do with figures from Founders Day '96."

After last year's problems, organizers improved money handling at Founders Day 1997, according to Rizos. In September, the treasurer and board members, seven of whom are new, collected event money and stayed with it at all times. They dropped it at a private building, where the treasurer counted the money, marked a ledger and walked it down to the bank. On Monday morning the treasurer, business manager and two other board members collected the bags and counted the money again.

"That is something I enforced immediately because of the questionable circumstances last year," Rizos said. "Our policies are efficient and safeguarded. There's no way for anyone to steal money."

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