Monday, October 12, 2015

Gotham Opera: The Other Shoe Drops?

Gotham Opera is blaming its former director, David Bennett, for the terrible discovery that the company had $600,000 in debt that apparently nobody knew about. Read that article, which contains gems such as the following:
According to Gotham staff and a board member, a cache of unpaid bills, invoices and fines totaling $600,000 were never put on the books or reported to the board, and were discovered after Bennett left for San Diego last spring. The Gotham’s annual budget was $1.8 million, according to the company’s most recent tax filings. 
“There was one person who had full access to the books. One person. And it was the responsibility of that person to input all of these invoices,” said Edward Barnes, the current executive director at Gotham. He was hired to replace Bennett in May.
I see more than one person at fault here. Why on earth did only person have full access to the books? Was there no outside accounting firm that saw the company's books? Ever? Did no one on the Board read whatever information Bennett provided carefully enough to ask more questions?? Apparently not:
 They never questioned the financials because they had faith in Bennett.
That's negligent, to say the least.

Bennett, of course, is saying "Now they get it!" Um, it was your job to make sure that the Board fully understood the company's financial situation.

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