Richard Lesher

After I found the 2003 resignation memo the General Manager starting locking the file cabinets and locked me out of quick books (despite the board president given me full access). Anyway, Quickbooks (back then anyway) has rather week security. All it did was lock me out of the query reporting tool. I still could access the raw data and got dates, general ledger account numbers, and debit credit amount. Yea, raw data, but nothing I couldn't easily rebuild in MS Access or Excel.

I completely understand what you are saying. When I entered the Army I went to basic training at the age of 39. It was a surreal experience in that I was surrounded by marching age young new soldiers eager for the guidance and approval of the high and mighty drill sergeants (who were only a few years older than them). I was in a different mindset with 20 years in finance, an MBA/CFA, and all the life surrounding it. I was just there to check a box and carry on with getting officially trained as a soldier. Anyway........... about the second week into basic training I realized. OH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!! The kids surrounding me................... THOSE WERE MY DRUM CORPS YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That experience and revelation is perhaps one of the more rare experiences one gets to observe in life. Short of my coconsciousness being pulled out of my 39 year old body and put into my mind back in 1990 all I could do was technically be a peer of all the young solders and watch them get suckered into all the mind games the drill sergeants came at them with. The lies are endless, if only to create an atmosphere of simulated stress. Example: How is it the END OF THE WORLD, if one little piece of lint is on a uniform or a boot is not polished to mirror finish, but on the other end of the equation Drill Sergeants are perfectly OK with soldiers BARELY passing rifle qualification. Shouldn't Drill Sergeants also lose their #### if a soldier misses ONE TARGET??????????? The kids were surrounded by dramatics and they got drank it all up.

I also will mention that I was hoping to find out what SCV's bingo profitability was prior to the Bingo fraud of 2005. Unfortunately the "Gaming Operations" break out numbers are not disclosed on 990's prior to 2009. The 990 form was just shorter. After 2009 the IRS forced non profits to provide more detail. This is what is meant by transparency. Independently verified factual numbers to be critiqued with critical analysis by financial and accounting professionals. Transparency is not sitting around the campfire waiting for someone in SCV leadership to tell their story.

So............. all they have to do is submit an annual registration fee of a few hundred dollars, that registration be filled out correctly (not even honestly, just name and address, check a few boxes, and include the payment), and in addition to that provide the 990, and if more than $2M in revenue is reported then they also have to provide their independent Audit. *********************** I want to point out how easy it would be to comply with the above. If it was totally fabricated I wouldn't have a leg to stand on. They would be in compliance and that would be that. I'd have no details of their bookkeeping beyond the 990's What happened in the past (prior to my being on the board) is the General Manager would simply push the revenue numbers down below $2M, and thereby not need to submit an audit, and thereby simply submit the registration and fee, and be done with it. So there is a long history of SCV in the early 2000's and 90's just having all sorts of financial problems and continuing to operate under the radar of regulators by knowing a thing or two the importance of submitting the annual registration. ****************** What I am getting at is SCV is somehow entirely hung up on getting an audit. The last audit that has been provided was for FY2019. I want to point out, if you take the time to READ the audit itself as found on the DOJ website well, the CPA signature on that audit is dated April 2022. SCV started going delinquent in 2020. We know that. However, at the time of my making that delinquency known in April of 2023 (TWENTY THREE!!!!!!!!!!!!) SCV was apparently sitting on this audit an ENTIRE YEAR!!!!! There as NO REASON!!!!!!!!!!!!! for SCV to have continued being delinquent at the time I noticed they fell out of compliance. Had they cleared up that delinquency 2020 was below $2M, and got them out of that audit requirement, and then 2021 didn't get a delinquency notice until August of 2023. Had SCV simply submitted the audit with the registration, and paid attention to the DOJ notices it would have all been cleared up until August 2023, at which this WHOLE thing would be drastically diminished because we'd all see it as a NEW PROBLEM, not a persistent problem going into its FIFTH YEAR!!!!!!!! ******************** Additionally.............. the FY2019 audit stuff, and the FY 2021 stuff is all work that was done previously by the prior CFO. So it apereas to me all SCV is doing is scrambling around the office trying to find work that had been lying around and submitting it hoping for the best. If they are trying to get current now, they are out of time. What I have done now is notify Petrinovich Pugh & Company, LLP of SCV's DOJ notifications, and spelled it out for them the State violations and illegal Bingo payments. FY 2022 is the smoking gun. FY 2023 is the dead body. If they finally get an audit (which they perfectly can) those Bingo violations are going to have to be annotated in the audits for the CPA's to cover themselves. **************** Now........... when I finally got myself on the Board of SCV in 2006 I discovered the CPA audit statement missing for FY2003. So what I did is have to go back and request a copy of it. Effectively what happened was the General Manager was not cooperating with the CPA firm. The CPA firm had concerns about bingo, those concerns were not being address through the GM. So in 2003 the auditors resigned their services with SCV, and all financial operations went unchecked until 2006, and it wasn't until 2 years later that General Manager was forced out. 2020 is not audited 2021 is not audited 2022 is not audited 2023 just finished up and an audit needs to start Bingo is making $1.5M less against earning $6M more. HOW BLIND CAN PEOPLE BE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Soooooooo......... if one looks much more closer at the details and financial trends the 2022 fiscal year is not catastrophically brought to it's knees by expense mismanagement. I was ready rip into that, however the 2022 expenses total $6.78M. To put that into context FY2019 (ignoring all the COVID nonsense as a comparison) the expenses were $6.50M. So we are talking about $300K more in expenses that last previous experienced in a touring year. Bingo however became completely unhinged. FY 2019 revenue for bingo was $10.97M and netted $3.78M against bingo direct expenses. FY2022 revenue for bingo was $17.13M and netted $2.25M. against bingo direct expenses. *************** For you see............... the person in charge of bingo that had been working there the past 13 years, and who was the treasure of SCV at the time she discovered the Bingo thefts back in 2005 finally retired (she was in her 70's). She came back later in the year in 2020 to help with training the incoming paid bingo staff, but after she was finally out of bingo operations in every way, welp............. Bingo profitability completely fell apart. SCV changed their bingo model from using volunteers to a fulltime paid staff, the new bingo manager moved to Hawaii and continues to run bingo from there, and profitability collapsed against actually making $6M more. The current Bingo Manager is not however the one that replaced the long time retired manager. There was another one in between. I suspect that guy simply left with the idiot Community Theater manager said they were just going to close Bingo Doors because of COVID since he didn't want to bother trying to figure out continuation operations that complied with Health ordinances. *************** The recent explanation by the CEO saying the problems are stemming from a lot of turn over is very perplexing. Only his role had any recent turn over. Everyone else has been entrenched since 2020, and they collectively had had three years at this time of no operations to distract them from figuring out what is going on. Even with the CEO position having not been filled for several months prior, that's irrelevant too. The ones pulling the strings have never been in the CEO position. It's coming from the Board and the CFO. The time table that current CEO is also putting out for corrective action is longer than the CA DOJ is giving allowance for as documented in their notices. I am not buying one bit of it. I was the guy that lit this fuse this time last year, and SCV is still pushing a narrative of "We got this" while at the same time the only verifiable information that is coming out shows otherwise. **************** This is how powerful Bingo is folks. In 2019 the trajectory started when they lost $545K in a normal operating year, and 5 years later they still exist with the potential of a multi million dollar revenue stream. However, it is beyond me in that additional an $6M of bingo revenue were did that all disappeared into $3.9M more expenses. Now......... one might say it was Bingo Salaries (well, I guess pilfering anyway), but that salaries themselves cannot be in that expense number of Bingo Direct Expenses (as a matter of law), and I'm only estimating bingo salaries in the neighborhood of $500K (part time positions). Not $4M across 17 people What makes up the details of Bingo Expenses????????????????????????

He doesn't have a chance. The entire core of leadership problems are still pulling the strings. It's too bad, Russ is being played and his credibility and professional status is being taken advantage of. Russ was the third person offered the job in August because the prior two required the CFO be terminated as a condition of their taking the position.

That's highly unlikely. Some jerk submitted all the DOJ documents to SCV's own CPA auditors, and laid a trail of breadcrumbs toward violations of 5 city bingo ordinances and 3 state laws. Anyone that' throws there CPA reputation on SCV's financials is going to be exposing their professional integrity. It doesn't mean they can't be audited, it just means they are going to probably going to get a CPA audit with a warning statements. FY2022 is the smoking gun of those violations I said where happening, and FY2023 is the dead body of those violations. 2021 still needs auding and then 2022 still needs auditing, and by time all that happens then 2023 will still be late and they will still be delinquent that entire time. I really don't see a pathway towards getting to compliance before the time period given by the DOJ and the State Tax Board on the 16-NOV-2023 warning memo.

I'm itching for that to happen, seriously, then I'd get to start fresh when the next shoe drops.

Apparently I've gotten soft lately.

I thought that's what I was doing.

This is what I have been waiting for. All numbers and calculations are derived from the FY2022 990 with CFO Jenn Bauman’s signature on it. VMAPA never had the resources to meet the needs of Bingo Payroll legally. Even without estimating the floor staff Payroll, VMAPA cannot even legally meet the needs of the Bingo Managers Salary as disclosed on the IRS 990. The argument for investment reserves cannot be made. Current Liabilities exceeds Current cash + savings + investments to meet those liabilities. There is nothing to pay Bingo Staff with that isn’t Bingo Revenue. Bingo $2,255,441 Cannot be used for Bingo Payroll Tuition $1,298,242 2023 did not have members in 2023 amount is Zero Fundraising $21,003 Illegal Activity Grants and Donations $457,855 Illegal Activity Unrealized Gains From Investments $70,674 Comingled funds with Bingo sources Realized Losses on Investment Sales $(93,950) Comingled funds with Bingo sources Sale from Inventory $42,595 OK source of Funds for Bingo Payroll Misc Income $24,406 OK source of Funds from Bingo Total Net Income 2022 $4,076,266 Funds available for Bingo Payroll $67,001 Bingo Manager Salary per IRS990 $85,000 Deficit legal sources of Revenue for Bingo Manager $(17,999) Cash + Savings $147,360 Investments (Comingled with Bingo) $458,717 Total Funds available to meet short term Liabilities $606,077 Current Short Term Liabilities $653,964 Deficit Financial Liquidity $(47,887) ***************** Since 1-November-2023 VMAPA has been in violation of: City Bingo Ordinance 5.75.080 - Exclusive operation by members of the licensee organization. CA Gambling Laws § 326.5 - Payment of Bingo Staff with Bingo Revenues. Penalties are a $10,000 fine, and termination of their Bingo License.

I suppose my hope lies in my previous experience. If all the BS stops right here, right now, and Bingo and the Board are entirely purged the economic market that Bingo players provide can fix everything inside of a year.

I don't know. I am skeptical of the council they seek and say they are using. Here are two of my "lawyer" experiences with SCV this past year. 1) When I first broached the Bingo Salary question. I was approached by an attorney claiming to represent SCV. The e-mail was sent to me after normal business hours, and he tactfully requested I provide my proof of my claim. Mind you, I was a the initial phase of my discovery process. I have 100% confidence in my analysis, but it could be countered with someone willing to doctor SCV financial records. So I balked. As it turned out, I later found the DOJ letters, and their claim per legal council that SCV is in compliance with all laws (as communicated to by by the Board President via e-mail with SCV organization e-mail address) was entirely false. Now, before the DOJ letters were found I had already calculated they are probably paying bingo illegally, as it would take Donation income on par with their best years to meet the bingo salary needs. So at the claim at the time wasn't 100% locked in. With the discovery of the Delinquency that meant donations were off the table for legal cash flow sources for Bingo Salaries, and changed my assessment from highly probable to 100% certainty. I also discovered the attorney that came after me was a prior board member, and served at the time SCV started falling into Delinquency. They were also sitting on the board while they were compliant. So they had an example of what was right. 2) I played around with VMAPA.org, and snagged the Domain, and used it as my whistleblowing site. It was fun while it lasted, and they came at me with international mediators using international law from lawyers located in Tennessee to help them with the filing. I would have had to pay $2,000 to the mediators located in Europe to drag this out and try and keep the domain. They let it expire back in 2018, and I jumped on it. They came crying foul when I used it to dump all their 990's and DOJ letters on it and rubbed their face in it. What that means to me is they were not at all interested in dragging me into a California Court with my CA DOJ documents and my explaining how I came about the Domain after I notified the board of SCV and DCI and they did nothing for two months before I bought it up. To this day they have done nothing with the Web Domain, and haven't even bothered to point it back to their own website. The domain itself appears to be under the control of the attorneys. I migrated all my content to: TruthInDrumCorps.com Honestly, the website only ever got to 150 independent viewers, and is not worth anything, nor my time. SCV has spent way more money than I did messing around with it, and there never was any significant traffic to be afraid of (not even the SCV alumni were frequenting it). It's just a nice depository for all documents (which I am falling behind on keeping updated). Once this is all behind me I'll more than likely dump everything there. ***************** So to my point, SCV really doesn't seem to have substantial attorney council, but as a cautionary process on my part I'm leaning heavily on DOJ letters, 990's, state and city laws/ordinances. In fact, their net worth at the FY2022 990's indicated a net worth of only $690K (down from $3.7M the year prior) with substantial debt, and now their overhead is stacked with staff. I really don't think they are saving much to bolster that net worth. ************* I mean WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Their NET ASSETS decreased $3,000,000 in one year while that year included income from marching members, bingo, and donations (illegal or otherwise). ************* I have been telling folks off the record (now on the record) that whatever I thought was going on (this time last year) it is going to be worse than I think it is. If anything, I was limiting my assessment to the data I had at the time, and now I have FY2022 990, holy mother of god. I was right.

That's what I was hoping for. When the new CEO stepped in he immediately had three pathways available to himself. 1) Attack it head on. 2) Become complicit with it. 3) Run for the hills. In the beginning he was in his strongest position. He could have said OMG WTF is going on. I'm going to put an end to it. At that moment he could have had the board of directors by the short ones since nothing prior to him was part of his doing. He was immune. Now he's not, he's regurgitated the narrative, and picked up a shovel to continue digging. He still could do a 180, but every day that passes gets harder.

Well...................... Something happen quietly. Academy dumped their new Director they hired only a few months ago. POOF, all reference to that is gone except a DCI news release that references back to the Academy announcement which gives a link error 404. My point is............ if you look up that person's name in the California Teachers Registry you will see they had their teaching credential revoked for disciplinary reasons. One can speculate the scenario is correlated. ************** So what Academy effectively did was do the thing everyone is saying Corps should do.

I agree too. It's the quantities that start to draw that line. I think $1,000,000+ crosses that line of "passive" fund raising activity. Charities in California enjoy an eased pathway toward fundraising, and to include some exemptions to Bingo regulations as well. The cost of those benefits are elevated regulatory visibility.

It's a million dollars and they are in violation of: Cal. Code Regs., title. 11, § 999.9.4. – Solicitation of Donations Prohibited as a delinquent entity with the Department of Justice Register of Charitable Trusts. They don't have audited financial statements which is also in violation of: CA Gov Code. 12586 – Failure to submit Audited Financial Statements required by the CA Department of Justice. ************ The issue effectively becomes millions of dollars of fraudulent solicitations of donations are potentially being pursued. There is no verification that the funds are being used for the disclosed purpose of the nonprofit's mission statement. It does start to matter at some point, and SCV has crossed that threshold. ************ Another question becomes, is the city going to allow SCV to operate Bingo without being a nonprofit That's where it's heading. Right now.

I am getting the impression, on the surface, had Bingo not imploded cash flows would have more than covered whatever expense increases SCV incurred during the 2022 tour. Had the bingo profit ratio remained constant against revenues they would have had $3.8M more in 2022 alone to work with. Had the bingo net income remained the same (and still lost out of profitability ratio) they would have had $1.5M more and would have never needed to liquidate any of the reserves. It would have been a touch and go year, but it would have likely been totally accepted by everyone (to include myself).

Only a complete moron wouldn't raise prices with corresponding payouts to match profitability. Manager is in Hawaii They don't have a bingo committee anymore No one is watching the hen house Financials are not audited. I'm going with activities more on the illegal side of things.

OK, this is very serious. The comparison of the overall expenses of entire operations is not entirely that far off from 2019 and 2022. It's not great, but I was expecting to see tour operations as the main culprit. It is in the revenues where SCV falls greatly short. Below is the 2019 bingo numbers. I use 2019 as a reference as what it could possibly be in the best of times and compare them against FY2022 Does everyone see what I am freaking out about. For the love of god, Bingo Revenues increased $6.1M in 2022 yet they made $1.2M less. OH MY GOD HERE WE GO AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT IS NOW ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY THAT ILLEGAL DONATIONS EXCEED $1,000,000 Form 990 Part I Summary line 8 Contributions and grants (Part VIII, line 1h) 2020 - 171,194 2021 - 547,347 2022 - 457,855 Total Donations and Grants during the violation period is $1,176,396. Vanguard did not acknowledge its delinquent status until April 2023. The last audited financial statements are for FY2019. The above numbers are from unaudited, but filed 990's. To counter this number as false one would need to present audited financial statements validating the sources of funds fell out of the sky unsolicited. Vanguard continues to maintain its online donation channels on its website.

That would be F U B A R

Well, chronologically.................... since this is the close of FY2022 it's only a smoldering wreck by now. It happened a year ago.

Just picking some 2022 balance sheet numbers. Cash 104,263 Savings 43,097 Investments 458,717 Acct Payable 653,964 Mortgage 139,039 Other Liabilities 907,785 The takeaway is accounts payable is greater than all liquid assets. ********* The alumni were also given the impression the investments were not tapped. Another astronomical point of this is INVESTMENTS!!!!!!!!! is lower than the needed BINGO PAYROLL!!!!!! Form Day-1 of FY2023 SCV never had the reserves to cover down on Bingo Payroll with even a questionable source of funds, especially in that current accounts payable is greater than Cash + Savings + Investments This is what SCV came after me for, this is why I was being censored. Now................... folks.................. I have a new validated data point. Now I know the starting point of FY2023. I know it's illegal to solicit donations. I know that SCV is technically starting with a negative liquidity position. I know reserves are not sufficient to even cover current liabilities let alone any payroll needs

Here is the 2022 990, found it on an independent site that publishes things before the IRS makes it available (unaudited) https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237073438/202342899349302499/full