Santa Clara Vanguard 2024

[MarimbaManiac]

5 minutes ago, Sutasaurus said:

Russ is trying to put the best face forward on VMAPA but reciting the tale of woe from 2019-2022 and up to 2023 isn’t helping his cause.

I read that paragraph and thought  “Why the mass exodus”? What was going on with the organization that multiple staff/admin/ board members decided to jump ship while the ones who stayed on let VMAPA go to hell in a handbasket? Was it a case of not wanting to be liable for what was coming down the pike from both the financials and member safety? 
 

To me this letter raises more questions than paint a rosy picture. For Russ’ sake, and the sake of VMAPA I hope he’s given the latitude to turn things around but you have to keep in mind he is surrounded by the people who let this happen in the first place!

Godspeed Russ Gavin.

Yes, thank you. It's so crazy reading comments like "It's nice that they're being more upfront" from people. It's like...where?

I understand the need to present things positively for recruitment, but the more they release these "non-updates" the more I feel they're barely able to keep their head above water. 

 

[Terri Schehr]

15 minutes ago, Sutasaurus said:

Russ is trying to put the best face forward on VMAPA but reciting the tale of woe from 2019-2022 and up to 2023 isn’t helping his cause.

I read that paragraph and thought  “Why the mass exodus”? What was going on with the organization that multiple staff/admin/ board members decided to jump ship while the ones who stayed on let VMAPA go to hell in a handbasket? Was it a case of not wanting to be liable for what was coming down the pike from both the financials and member safety? 
 

To me this letter raises more questions than paint a rosy picture. For Russ’ sake, and the sake of VMAPA I hope he’s given the latitude to turn things around but you have to keep in mind he is surrounded by the people who let this happen in the first place!

Godspeed Russ Gavin.

We used to call that “whataboutism”.  Oh wait…we still do. 

[scheherazadesghost]

15 hours ago, Richard Lesher said:

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. 

Just gonna sip my tea over here.

Curious that no one keyed into this. Maybe too in-the-weeds.

[corps8294]

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Edited December 16, 2023 by corps8294

[JimF-LowBari]

1 hour ago, gbass598 said:

I’m really convinced people just come here to complain because they don’t hear the answers they want to hear. No matter what SCV says or doesn’t say people start flinging #### lol over this forum because it’s not what they want to hear.

What I want to hear is that the state paperwork is complete, in order and approved. If not, bingo can be lost and corps will lose its financial base

[scheherazadesghost]

4 minutes ago, JimF-LowBari said:

What I want to hear is that the state paperwork is complete, in order and approved. If not, bingo can be lost and corps will lose its financial base

Stop being so negative. /s

[Richard Lesher]

2 hours ago, MarimbaManiac said:

Yes, thank you. It's so crazy reading comments like "It's nice that they're being more upfront" from people. It's like...where?

I understand the need to present things positively for recruitment, but the more they release these "non-updates" the more I feel they're barely able to keep their head above water. 

 

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????????????????????????

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by Richard Lesher

[Richard Lesher]

59 minutes ago, JimF-LowBari said:

What I want to hear is that the state paperwork is complete, in order and approved. If not, bingo can be lost and corps will lose its financial base

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by Richard Lesher

[Richard Lesher]

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.  

Edited December 16, 2023 by Richard Lesher

[MarimbaManiac]

16 minutes ago, Richard Lesher said:

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.  

Unfortunately, the intended audience for this statement (the 16-22 year old potential members and their parents) will be dazzled by the positive sounding language and vague promises. They always have been, even as those with more experience and insight are banging their heads against the wall. People WANT to hear good news, so any release is considered transparent. 

It's the incompetent pandering to the naive, and unfortunately it's successful to a degree.