Keeping tabs on finances has been a bit challenging during the past month for the Eureka Springs City Advertising and Promotion Commission after the sudden departure of its finance director.
Scott Bardin resigned without notice by text message on Friday, June 28, and CAPC staff have had challenges accessing equipment and programs used during his tenure, commissioners were told during their regular monthly meeting on Wednesday, July 24.
“Up until about 4 p.m. this afternoon we didn’t have anything,” CAPC executive director Mike Maloney told commissioners while giving an abbreviated financial report. “I want to thank my colleagues from the city for being able to come in and help us with QuickBooks which has been an ongoing task for at least the past two and a half weeks. Even at best, we still don’t have access to the reports we need.”
CAPC staff was able to get access to bank balances, which showed a total balance of $2,095,200.39 as of July 24, Maloney reported.
“We had difficulty with QuickBooks,” Maloney said. “At the time of the departure of Mr. Bardin we had no way to get back into the program. Nothing worked.”
City finance director Michael Akins assisted the CAPC with trying to access QuickBooks and with other finance-related matters.
“It’s been a pretty long process,” Akins said. “We had an admin [for Quick-Books] who was the previous [finance] director and before sending the equipment back to us and everything he went in and deleted himself as an admin and put somebody who worked here a long time ago as the admin. So, that left us unable to get in there and be able to do anything.”
Many phone calls later, the CAPC was able to get an outdated version of QuickBooks updated and finally was able to access the program earlier that day, Akins said.
Maloney told commissioners that the laptop Bardin used was being sent to Pinnacle IT for examination, as well.
“To make sure that there is no infectious data on it,” Maloney said. “We don’t know, we’ve not tried to open it up just out of reluctance to pull something up and perhaps infiltrate and create a problem or virus and another situation.”
Maloney said that CAPC staff wasn’t able to access the bank accounts until the day of the July 24 meeting as well.
“Today was the first day we were able to actually open up, through online banking, our checking accounts…,” Maloney said, later adding that the situation has been “very frustrating.”
“We couldn’t look at those numbers until today, so literally what you’re seeing is less than three or four hours old in terms of our eyes. … So, we want to make you aware of the fact that we had some very serious complications, obviously.”
Akins told commissioners another issue has been with the CAPC’s credit card, which was in Bardin’s name.
“The credit card was in Scott’s name and [when he resigned] he immediately went in and canceled the credit card and didn’t let anybody know,” Akins said. “What happened is your subscriptions and things like that, your monthly charges that you had on a credit card started expiring, started bouncing.”
Akins said he suggested to Maloney that a better credit card system for CAPC expenses was to have a credit limit approved for the entire department and then splitting that limit on cards for the entire CAPC staff, which is how the city handles their credit account.
“My suggestion was that [CAPC staff] actually do what [the city] is doing and get approved for a certain amount and not just have one credit card,” Akins said. “That would keep you from going forward and if something happens in the future with your next finance director or whatever, then this wouldn’t happen again.”
An item on the agenda regarding a forensic audit on the CAPC finances was tabled because a legislative audit from 2022 was recently completed by the state and one from 2023 is to begin soon.
“I myself have caught simple mathematical errors in the financials that have been reported to the board in previous meetings, two of which in the last meeting and then one separate one in a meeting before that,” commissioner Kolin Paulk said. “So, honestly, I really don’t have faith in the previous financial director’s summaries at all. … I was going to say that we audit 2024, but I definitely think there’s some housecleaning where we need to make sure that things are as they are supposed to be.”
Akins and Maloney both suggested waiting until the laptop used by Bardin is examined and cleared by the IT company is complete so actual information can be obtained on current finances.
“A lot of the financial documents were saved on that laptop, not on the desktop,” Akins said. “I haven’t been able to access those to get the templates, the forms, the data to see what he had put in there. Once I’m able to do that, once we have the computer back, my goal is to go back at least through the first of the year … I’m going to look at everything and correct errors and make sure everything is where it needs to be.”
Steve Holifield, whom the commission selected to serve as chair for the remainder of the year, said he felt the possibility of a forensic audit should be moved to the agenda for the August meeting.
“What it sounds like with Michael not having access to all the information, I’m not sure if they could do a forensic audit at this point without access to all the information,” Holifield said. “… I personally don’t think anybody’s been stealing money or embezzling or anything like that. I think maybe it’s just more bookkeeping …”
DIRECTOR’S REPORT During his monthly report, Maloney introduced the CAPC’s new group sales director, Jana Kaylor, and explained the things she has and will be working on in upcoming months, including a trip to Saint George, Utah, in September to attend the “small market meeting trade show.”
The trip will cost approximately $1,200, Maloney reported.
Maloney also told commissioners that he has recently been in touch with the Sam Walton School of Business at the University of Arkansas and the Arkansas Small Business Association to research what it would cost to have an economic impact study done regarding a possible parking garage in Eureka Springs.
The subject has been one that has been discussed for decades.
“The commission has been able to put substantial money in the bank and we’ve not really touched much of it,” Maloney said. “We did spend approximately $56,000 with parks and the needed improvements at Basin Spring Park. However, going forward one of the things we’ve never touched on really is what I could call a legacy to the city and the future generations going forward.
“The Arkansas Legislature created an opportunity for A&P commissions … to build brick and mortar. … I have gone ahead and taken a little bit of an opportunity to reach out and talk to people about some of the needs of Eureka Springs, and one of those has always been the ability to park. We’ve had that problem for a long time.”
Maloney said such an economic impact study could cost anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000.
“It doesn’t mean there will be [a parking deck in the future], but what it means is that we need to address economically the impact of that,” he said. “These costs are very important up front, just as any major project. We need to find out what it would take, where it would be and why it would be there, what it will take to go ahead and pay off a bonded indebtedness over a period of time. There’s just quite a bit of information that needs to be gathered.”
Maloney also reported new ways the CAPC is communicating with collectors and stakeholders, including a weekly letter.
“The institution of a weekly letter from me to all of our collectors and stakeholders,” he said. “This is important information that will sometimes be data-driven because of the information we receive from Madden [Media].
A new CAPC Facebook page is also being rolled out, Maloney said.
“It will be information about what is going on in town,” he said. “We intend for this to be a very positive and very uplifting opportunity to report back again to stakeholders within the community.”
OTHER ITEMS
Commissioners approved a new pricing system for renting out The Auditorium.
The approved plan involves an initial fee of $1,000, which will automatically include the use of 256 seats.
“After 257 seats then it starts to become $3.89 a seat,” Maloney said. “The maximum amount of money ever put down is $3,500 and that’s selling 900 seats …” Commissioners approved a $5,000 funding request for the Classic Car Show and Shine, in its 53rd year, and called “the largest car show in the Ozarks,” for Sept. 6-7 at Pine Mountain Village.
Also OK’d was a $5,000 funding request for the annual Zombie Crawl, which will be held Oct. 26.
In addition to Holifield being selected as chair through Dec. 31, new commissioner Shira Fouste was selected as vice chair and Bradley Tate-Greene will now serve as secretary.
