Richard Lesher

Yes, but last time they started with $3,000,000 in cash and investments in reserve which they nowhere near have now. The same head honchos are calling the shots. The financial information they would be basing all planning decisions on according to their own CPA's are erroneous, and Bingo Revenues have an unknown operational aspect to it causing losses before Operating Expenses are even included.

SCV's job postings are probably leading indicators of what they are not prepared for: https://www.scvanguard.org/jobs/ Housing Coordinator Tour Assistant Transportation Assistant Food Truck Assistant Can't move them, can't feed them, can't house them. They will have a great show otherwise.

It's me again 🙂 Ummm........... so 2019 was the last audit without any screaming red flags, and even that audit was submitted 4 years late. Then 2020 wasn't audited at all since their total revenues fell below $2M at a close $1.95M (which is very suspect). It's not going to happen. Even I would admit that's a waste of time and resources. Then the audit that did get them out of the dog house was for TWO YEARS. So really......... if the audits were done on time then they would be two consecutive audits screaming red flags. FY2019 = audit submitted 4 years late. FY 2020 = no audit at all. FY 2021 = audit cannot verify any bingo revenue/expenses, nor the property/equipment, nor cash and cash equivalents. FY 2022 = audit cannot verify any bingo revenue/expenses, nor the property/equipment, nor cash and cash equivalents. FY 2023 = due in 45 days (mid March) *************** What are the odds the crew that ran all of 2021 and 2022 who were there for all of 2023 (remember the new CEO only came on at the very end of 2023) are going to magically have cleaned up 2023 while throwing 21 and 22 to the wolves? ***Have folks READ the audit opinion??? Clearly the new CEO just had to give up and take it on the chin and forced the audit to completion for the sake of compliance. None of it was on his shoulders.*** I've been there. I gave up on reconciling to the financials prior to my time on the board. We just took a fresh inventory to get a footing on the balance sheet and went from there. We didn't have to tie back to a prior year that was audited so it worked out. Anyway.............. I'm really hoping for a strong showing of Cavies and Phantom (probably not, I really don't know). Come the west coast shows some hearts are going to be racing praying to God the Mandarins don't beat them. I mean the last time I beat the Mandarins I was a Vanguard Cadet under the very same director the Mandarins are run by now. If Mandarins don't beat SCV this year they are never going to do it. Anyway.................. Bingo is very exposed. They are not in a position to know (so says their auditors) what they will earn with it, and as such is going to wreak havoc during tour. The CEO they hired was basically told to go get them on the road and to finals, and at no point did he have any input on the building of the economic foundation or justification of that decision, and only a few weeks ago was he told by his CPA firm all the financial information he has is erroneous. Right? The BEST INFORMATION the CEO has access to for decision making his CPA firm cannot make heads or tails of it. ************** If I were SCV I would dump the CPA firm, and try and find one hard up for clients and less scrupulous.

When I as a youth was deciding to follow a path of Boy Scouts or Drum Corps the decision was made for me when the Sherrif showed up to one of my Scout meetings and arrested our Scout Master. As it turns out, one of my Scout friends was molested by said Scout master at a camping trip. I missed said camping trip because I was at a Drum Corps event (if I remember a local St Patrick’s parade). For some reason I have a strong motivation for the responsible oversight of Drum Corps, and I could care less about Boy Scouts. It is incumbent on the stakeholders of these organizations to protect them, and guide them. Wherever opportunity exists it will be taken advantage of. Drum Corps are a target rich environment. Others will follow.

The snack bar killed them off. Yes, the snack bar. They still have data on the California Department of Justice Website. Parties involved with SCV eventually ended up over at the Freelancers and while they didn't cause the Snack Bar oddities, all IRS reporting stopped when they got there. Freelancers do not file taxes in 2005, and while Snack Bar was a net loser the losses jump astronomically in 2006. The below numbers are from the 990's and the snack bar numbers are a subcategory of the Total Revenue. If Freelancers didn't have a Snack Bar they would still be around. That's actually not true, folks were probably using it as a means to put cash into their own pockets. They would have figured out another way. My point is folks, we need to look out for ourselves and each other.

I already did. Rocks I never anticipated turning over are now going to get new attention.

Yesterday was a very big day for me. It was a “Feathers Up” kind of day. The results of the Audit Opinion ended up being the foundation of support of my efforts by way of CPA Professional Opinion that doesn’t disagree with me. They got to see the inside deal, and cannot disagree with me. Additionally, I found something else out, and will be reaching out to my own city Police to tie up lose ends with the cyber harassment going against me. It is annoying, but it has been steeling my resolve. I am sadden such actions were effective against other alumni. I thrive on it. I hope my local PD will be able to connect with law enforcement in San Diego. Folks forget (look on linkedin) I’m a former Military Intelligence Analyst before I commissioned as an Army Officer. So my take on this whole thing about the cyber stuff is “OK, let’s go”. *********** Things are always worse than I think they are because I am only making an assessment on limited information. For example, if we compare what was known and communicated by SCV back in September 2022 we didn’t have the audit. We didn’t know they were delinquent since 2020. NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If the 2021 audit was completed on time then that would have been available for public consumption at the time 2023 termination of the corps. So in addition to the narrative being barfed out by the Board and CEO (remember, the President then is the current CFO, and the treasurer then is the now President) about not being able to manage expenses, there would have been an opportunity to point out that 70% of the financial performance is a failure of Bingo, not expenses. In addition to the CPA’s opinion saying that Bingo revenue and expenses cannot be verified (along with the entire balance sheet) That’s what was behind all the words from the Board and SCV leadership during the termination of the Corps. Whatever nonsense financial analysis was being used at the time that pitched SCV into the ground those numbers cannot be verified. *********** The more desperate a situation gets the louder the screams become. They are getting louder on an individual basis, but I think the numbers are dwindling. Among the people that hate me, even some of them can add 2+2. I don’t expect converts, but they seem to be clearing out of the kill zone (relative to the nonsense pushed my way this time last year). ********** I often wondered what was causing leadership to hang on so desperately to power despite overwhelmingly evidence against them. I figured there had to be some sort of personal benefit going on here that the cost of walking away and letting others see behind the curtain was a greater risk than the continuation of the status quo. Now I get it. I found that motivation. I found MILLION$ of them. I’ve now put names behind those motivations, times of those actions, and financial losses of those combinations. The internet is my decompression venue. Law enforcement is my audience. ********** Holy Cow………. I had no expectation a CPA opinion would be given like that. WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! I would have expected at the very least SCV to throw all sorts of resources at the issue in order to correct and appease the CPA’s issues. They didn’t. They had since April 2023 when delinquency was made public. The Board President is a CPA, and the CFO is a full time CFO in San Francisco. They would have been better off not doing the audit at all. Certainly, the CPA audit can be applied to a multimillion dollar criminal complaint regarding the unexplained losses in bingo as literally reported on the 990s. Federal COVID grants and loans were also need to cover those Bingo Losses. ********** The actions of all last year of the harassment are evidence now. We can go on and on about groups just don’t like each other and it’s just throwing internet mud at each other. However, I don’t claim that anymore. I claim the MILLION$ as motivation on SCV’s leadership to string a message of disinformation. I got it too as much as Ghost, I just really don’t care. It does end up being useful. See………. I love data, it’s a function of my profession over the decades. One never knows when it will be useful, or which questions asked in the future can be answered by data from the past that doesn’t seem relevant at the time. One group says I want to take over SCV. I say they are responsible for stealing millions, covering it up, or at best simply ignoring the warning signs despite their professional credentials, training, and experience. Like I said, yesterday was a Feathers Up day for me. I put my money where my mouth is. My audience has changed now. ********** I’m in an astronomically stronger position than I was last year. Ironically, there’s actually less for me to do now. There’s no more data I can get (till 2023 data comes out), there are no more claims I can make (for now). The CPA Opinion was merely the GO COMMAND!!!!!!!!!!!! I was able to take off my Tinfoil Aussie, I put it on the CPA Auditors and all they could say is: I like how this fits. ********* There is the possibility that 2023 shows everything was fixed behind closed doors, and SCV kept a lid on it the whole time. However, the audit indicated nothing was being done in regard to 2021 and 2022. So for that logic path to work then SCV would have knowingly let 2021-22 burn at the cost of trying to right 2023. I’m betting they didn’t do either, and 2023 indicates similar losses in Bingo.

They will probably open up on nights they operate in Santa Clara too (thus cannibalizing their own revenues at the cost of added occupancy expenses).

Vanguard opened up a new Bingo Location. My worries are now greater. If they do not have the same Pull Tab (mini lottery tickets) sales ratio against traditional bingo games, the operation is going to end up draining money. They will literally be losing money on this operation. 1) They are starting 2024 with a much smaller reserve fund than they did in 2022. 2) The staff payroll appears to be very stacked (and heavy). 3) There is a better than not chance that the new Bingo location loses them money.

As those offered the position before him have. He's like offer #5. The CFO can only be removed by the board.

I extended myself in the warmest way one could in September 2022. I got blown off, ignored, threatened, continuous attempts to discredit me, SCV as an organization used legal methods in attempts to censor me (by attorneys that were board members at the time of State delinquency) in what I can now articulate a multimillion dollar inconsistency (being as nice as I can). I fixed this situation before inside of the organization. I took me two years to get past the management entrenched there to get to those improved numbers. I sit here, only 10 minutes away from SCV's place of business as a stay at home dad with 20 hours a week to allocate to any thing I want. If Bingo was fixed it could give them $1,000,000 more than they were planning on in 2024. This is not an exaggeration. When bingo was fixed last time SCV had more money than they knew what to do with. They literally couldn't spend it fast enough. Tour expenses would go over budget by $100K (already increasing the budget from the previous year), and Bingo would end making $300K more than planned. ******************* The problem is I'm not wasting the time I did back in 2005 with the bad actors dragging out this situation. Hence the polarizing effect I have with my fellow alumni (as many hate me as love me). ****************** So I literally agree with your idea. Yea, the whole bingo operation needs to come to a full stop. See what is going on, and then restart it with the operating procedures the previous Bingo Manager left behind. The purge however would have to be wide. Essentially........... only the corps and tour staff would be left. The new CEO also gets a pass (for now). ***************** I understand the tactics used against me now. The consequences are going to be steep for some people. The CPA firm now is wearing the same tinfoil hat I am being told I wear.

Phasing

They would effectively have to have the Bingo license pulled for that to mechanically prevent them from touring. Understand, the Bingo license is regulated by the City of Santa Clara. Complaints filed to the city are in no way correlated with complaints to the State. The state says they can operate as a non profit. The City gives them the privilege to operate Bingo. However, according to the auditors, nothing material can be verified. So even if they said they have a lot saved up from over 2023, from the auditors point of view "if you say so". Even if they go delinquent again for failing to file 2023 financials they are easily going to get extended to September, and the clock would have started all over again anyway. I think there is an 80% chance they will Tour. There is just too much reputation that is been staked against it. However, it could break them financially if bingo is bleeding the whole time and they lose control of expenses. I mean I could possibly rent a private 747 to a European vacation, but I wouldn't be able to get back, and I'd been living on the streets when its over. I cannot verify this of course but I think: 1) They are not starting 2024 with the same level of reserves they started with in 2022. 2) They will have to operate with a budget significantly less than they operated with in 2022 and 2019. So considering those two things my confidence is not high regarding the financial execution of the 2024 tour.

Mandarins will win DCI before SCV does again. Mandarins is currently headed by SCV's 1999 champion director and last year's DCI Director of the year. SCV sure knows how to pick'em they just can't KEEP'em

That's the heart of Schedule G on IRS form 990. There are mini lottery tickets, and then sales of Bingo playing cards (which are basically cheap crappy news paper prints). The mini lottery cards can be reconciled because the are sold in boxes with relatively know pay out ratio. Also the payout ratio WILL NEVER BE NEGATEIVE!!!!!!!!!!! If all the records are not kept at SCV then just ask the vendor for copies. If all the revenues are not tracked in the accounting system then simply add up the purchase invoices of what isn't left in inventory (and that will give a very close estimate) Bingo playing cards however................... OMG!!!!!!!!!!! No one checks how many bingo playing cards are left at the end of the night. No one counts where it all started. Even the good bingo manager I support didn't do that. She had to keep track of the profit ratio to keep tabs on things. Regarding Bingo Games. Prize pay outs are known. The number of games is known. It's a risk to fudge the payouts reported. That can be estimated accurately too (Games played each night X nights of bingo played during the year X the Prize Payout per game). Now, how many Bingo Cards were sold.............. welp............ that's a problem. Nothing is stopping a scenario where a sales clerk takes $200 from a customer to play, hands over $200 worth of bingo cards, and then pockets $100. So as you say............ at the end of the night, they count whatever is left, and report that as Bingo Revenue. The Pull Tab sales are supporting those losses night after night. Otherwise, they'd literally run out of money during a night a playing Bingo.

Further Bingo detail pulled from IRS 990 Schedule 9 history shows the below. Person A worked as the manager for 13 years, and was the previous treasurer that literally found the proof of the fraud in 2005. She went onto take over Bingo Operations. As you can all see there was a transition period where she worked with Person B, and then the year Person A finally retired management (and Person B left as well) changed to person C and D, and then the following year person C was left in charge of Bingo alone. Person C lives in Hawaii The negative years in question for 2021 and 2022 cannot be verified by the CPA Auditors.

At the end of fiscal year 2022 we were told the cause of the problems was the unexpected tour expenses. Now that we have 2022 990 in hand I compare them against 2019 (the last known set of good numbers for an operating and touring year). 70% of the financial explanation of the variance comes from Net Bingo revenues being $1.5M less than 2019. Corps related revenue (mostly tour fees) is negative because that is a good variance. It all adds to 100% of the variance explanation. What I see is that 70% of the cause of the financial problems is a result of Bingo Operations. Additionally.............. I add as a foot note, that Bingo Revenue (above the line) increased $6.2M while earning $1.5M less. The Auditor's opinion cannot verify Bingo revenue nor corresponding expenses. The Bingo Manager lives in Hawaii.

I think they can fumble through the execution of a season. However, the last time they did they blew through over $1,000,000 in reserve funds. That doesn't exist anymore. What they say they have isn't verifiable. The Board of Directors is literally going into 2024 blind. 2023 financials are due in March (two months) and they just spent all their financial/accounting analysis skills and resources over the last 9 months since I made the delinquency public to a disastrous outcome. Bingo is unverifiable, and when people are syphoning off from it they are he ones that decide how much money they take. So bingo revenue isn't a cash flow they can accurately depend on. The excuses we were given in the fall of 2022 about the expense estimates and actuals of the tour were claimed by the CPA to be unverifiable. So the historic data they should be planning with is erroneous, and the last data they had that was probably accurate is 2019 (which didn't work out as a planning aid in 2022 anyway).

With the advent of a Time Machine yes, they are positioned well for 2014, but I presume you mean 2024. According to the CPAs Audit Report how they are positioned, how much money they have, how much debt they owe, and the state of their fleet equipment cannot be verified.

They have addressed what is required by law. They have not addressed the concerns, that is unless you mean they have pretty much clarified my concerns are validated. My concerns are addressed, they are validated. That is not a measure of everything is good now. At some point rationalizing things are on a corrective path needs to be replaced with finding the causes of the issues addressed in the Auditor's Report. The problem with finding the causes and validating them is there are consequences. When those who face consequences can block the road to validation and the subsequent consequences there is motivation to prevent the validation. ********** The new CEO basically pushed through the audit process under threat of nonprofit status revocation and snuck under the deadline by 4 days (after being 4 years late). The result of that audit (merely checking the box) showed SCV's financials are erroneous, and anything material in the balance sheet or income statement (basically everything) cannot be used for making a financial assessment of the organization. Now that the audit is complete, and now that the results of that audit are public now is the time to review and scrutinize the numbers in junction with the CPA audit. I have an upper hand in that because for the last year I have been pouring over these numbers. Now I can focus my complaints on areas addressed by the CPA. Yes I might have other areas of concern, but leveraging the CPA opinion would be a better use of my time and effort making a convincing argument. ********** Where I was last year, verses this year at this time is a world of difference. I made public in April 2023 they were delinquent with audits, and what the Audit Statement implies is during those 9 months they didn't put forth the resources of accounting analysis to rebuild those financials. They had 9 months to get to the result of an unqualified opinion and they didn't even come close. The audit could not have presented a worse scenario. I fixed the bookkeeping before. I personally did it myself when Vanguard had bingo thefts in 2005, and it only took me a few months. However, we only got to that state when I had unincumbered access to all the invoices, bank statements, access to all the equipment, and bingo reports that go to the city. ***********

The question/accusation is often posed to me why I do not like the leadership of SCV? Why do I keep at it? Over the last year it has been a discovery process of the truth. The truth that has been withheld and guarded from stakeholders (and I presume some board members as well) of what has actually been going on. What it comes down to is millions is unaccounted for as a function of fiduciary irresponsibility among those professionally trained, professionally experienced, and entrusted with the responsibility. Those people and their friends (likely unwittingly) through their actions have overtly and continue to prevent the discovery process from happening. That’s what it comes down to. I had to endure a year of knowing the obvious and wait out the inventible for those in denial. Remember…………. The truth of the audit is two years old. That is the truth that was behind the words in September 2022. Had the audits been done on time then fiscal year 2021 would have been identified as a problem at Sept-2022 at that time, and a whole year of bingo irregularities could have been avoided (do folks think 2023 was any better than 2022?). What has held true of all things like this I analyze is the truth is worse than I think it is. I can only articulate an opinion on data that I have on hand, and I will always have incomplete data, and that goes for the 2005 Bingo theft. I only calculated $800K over three years, but once the Bingo Manager and General manager were out of the way total revenue improved $1.3M a year. So, if I look back at all my warnings as to how bad things are as we know it now, I now see that things are actually worse than I thought last year this time, and I have a new level of worry. I never said SCV was missing fixed assets and equipment. The CPA audit said that. They can’t account for it. I never said SCV was missing cash or can’t account for its money. The CPA audit said that. I hadn’t really dig unto the Bingo concerns. I only had a single data point (draft of 2021), but now that is a persistent trend and it correlates to the changes in Bingo Operations, the Bingo Manager, and his work situation from Hawaii. Holy mother of god, Bingo is totally sideways and I can quantify that in the millions. Now I can say Federal loans and grants were needed to cover the losses in bingo. That’s going to cause a problem with Federal Authorities. That’s a $675K. Those funds were procured while delinquent without audits and are less than the straight accounting loss of -$808K in Bingo payouts. Even if Bingo was operating at a break even 0% profit SCV would have $808K more, and those federal loans and grants would not have been needed. Now, I am saying things are WAY WORSE than we thought they were. The above is my new baseline, and things are worse because there is still all of 2023 that is now behind us that we have no verifiable data for. Are folks going to believe the core of SCV leadership that oversaw 2021 and 2022 as audited, and still in place in 2023 acted in an appropriate manner the entirety of 2023? They didn’t even get audited financial data for 2021 and 2022 until last week (two years after the fact). What financial information do you think they were working with in 2023????? Are folks saying that while the auditors don’t call out proof and it is not verifiable that there is a possibility there is a room filled with millions of dollars of undeposited Bingo cash that SCV will just stumble upon (oh look, we found it all)? No………. SCV leadership, the leadership at the core of letting things get to this point have continuously prayed on the Alumni’s limited information, limited financial education, and their love of SCV in order to manipulate their oversight of SCV for their own personal gain to continue unchecked. Net Assets decreased over $3,000,000 in 2022. The Vanguard Cadets will never return with Bingo performing as it currently is. Vanguard is not technically a member of DCI Vanguard’s own auditors cannot verify anything of material significance for the last two years audited, and 2020 will not get audited as a function of reporting income less than $2M. Total Bingo is netting millions less while reporting millions more in Gross Revenue. Pull Tab sales are covering losses in traditional bingo game. What is the measure of competence and success folks are using? What justification is being rationalized to overlook all this nonsense?

SCV is merely practice. Maybe I can get laws changed that impact Bingo state wide.

Yes, absolutely. Most certainly within a reasonable margin of error. The problem is over the course of an audit that at the end of all that time it turned out SCV couldn't make their numbers match between all the revenues and expenses in the accounting system to match what the bank said they had as their balances. This is why when I was the Treasurer that I wanted to see the actual bank statements and printed by the bank (not a photo copy) or at least log onto the internet and log into the account right in front of me.

As I was going through the IRS 990's of other Bingo operations in California I could compare to SCV I found that the Blue Devils and the Aquamaids (local Santa Clara bingo I can compare one on one) were the exception, not the norm. My mission in life right now is egging on SCV in a direction to get fixed. If I wanted to take on Bingo state wide there is plenty to pick from.

The Mayor of Santa Clara is an honorary board member. The first level of Bingo enforcement is the Santa Clara Police Department (the city issues the license) The auditor's report also means the city hasn't been keeping tabs on Bingo either. Otherwise, SCV would have the reports they make when they close out bingo every night that make up the monthly report that goes to the City Bingo inspector. I could not have wished for a more critical Independent Auditor's Report to support my claims. Remember, Doctors have doctor's speak. Lawyers have lawyer's speak. Scientists have science speak. Accountants have accountant's speak. The CPA's are not going to identify fraud. They are paid by SCV to audit the finances and report on their compliance as it pertains to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. What SCV cannot say now is that my claims of fraud and theft cannot be discounted. What SCV is challenged with is 2023 is locked in place (the year is over). Any changes they claimed to have made will show the performance when they reregister again in March (2.5 months away). What SCV is challenged with now is continuing to say they are addressing the items mentioned in the auditor's report while at the same time continuing employment of the CFO, and Bingo Manager (I suggest others as well, but come on, these two are at the front of the line). *********** Per SCV's own tax returns from 2021 to 2022 they lose a balance sheet net value of $3,000,000. That number itself per CPA speak is erroneous. It could be worse. It could be better. Which do you think it REALLY IS? Per CPA speak they cannot even validate how much money or investments SCV has to pay their operations and debts. So the balance sheet is erroneous as well. ************ Now............................. $3M net value is gone. Bingo is paying out more in cash prizes than taking in revenue (also unverifiable per the CPA), as reported by SCV, and the Bingo manager lives in Hawaii. ******** I'm just touching on the major things. I can also now articulate that SCV used the federal loans and grants to pay Bingo cash prizes because the pure accounting loss of Bingo games is greater than the loans and grants. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES FOLKS MISUSE OF FEDERAL FUNDS IS AGAINST FEDERAL LAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4 years in jail. $10,000 fine. If there is not fraud or theft (explicitly from Bingo), then someone made a decision to give away more money than taken in from Bingo Games, and also decided to get federal assistance to fund that decision. ************** Remember, the internet is my therapeutic decompression venue. DCP, Reddit, my Alumni forms are not my audience. Regulators and Law Enforcement are my audience now.