The Audit Waiting Game

A few salient points:

Sam Agarwal, Pacifica’s CFO, aka The One Armed Paper Hanger, has been far too busy to address the questions posed some months back by the Pacifica National Board, Finance Committee, and Audit Committee as to how special monies raised last year to be dedicated to the completion of the FY 2015 Audit were actually allocated.

He did not participate in tonight’s meeting.

A nontrivial amount appears to have been allocated to his and other salaries and special assistance in various unspecified forms, but the amounts and other particulars remain unanswered and unaddressed.

The CFO would appear to be unable to provide a simple accounting as to how the funds in question were spent. The Audit Committee Chair Pro Tem observed ‘They don’t do that.’

Some felt that iED Tom Livingston or the PNB might be asked to look into this, or alternatively that given the CFO’s finding himself as always overwhelmed such questions might be left open to some unspecified future consideration, the consistent consensus of the meeting being that given the CFO’s being overwhelmed such matters would have to await the completion of the already long overdue FY 2016 audit.

The long overdue pension fund audits, which are thought to be necessary for the completion of the long overdue FY 2016 were characterized by the CFO in the past as beyond his expertise, if not his comprehension, and appear uncompleted, those involved in their oversight having left their positions several months ago.

There is nothing officially publicly known as yet as to the status of the request made to the CA AG’s Office of Charitable Trusts for a further extension of the 14 February deadline for filing the FY 2016 Audit, previous requests for extension of that date having been consistently denied.

Pacifica’s legal status as a nonprofit depends on any such possible determination.

The consensus was that ‘No news is good news’.

The CFO said he’d try to find time to look into the question.

No station/unit budgets for FY 2018 have been submitted or approved.

No one knows if any of the previous recommendations from the going concern issues raised in previous audits as to financial accountability were ever addressed or implemented, the stability questions raised in the FY 2014 and 2015 audits appear therefore unaddressed .

The possibility of having an Audit Committee member go over the books in Berkeley was briefly mooted, but it was felt that given the CFO’s being overwhelmed this was best not pressed for the time being.

Agarwal continues to have failed to hire any additional staff, though authorized to do so a year ago and reauthorized since. [His previous explanation for this was in part that he couldn’t find anyone sufficiently skilled for anything he was willing to pay and that in any event it would take at least two or three months to get any new hire up to speed because of Pacifica’s particular needs and the special skills necessary.]

The Audit Committee briefly discussed the CFO’s previous statement that getting all audits current would require ~$500,000, and felt that the CFO hadn’t provided any actual estimate of how he’d arrived at that figure.

The meeting then adjourned.

All was pleasant, all was cordial, all was polite, all is well…

~ ‘indigopirate’

ps: The Finance Committee Meeting which had been scheduled for tomorrow, 6 March, has now been cancelled.