by Bill Crosier

I agree with Hank {Lamb} and Brian {Shiratsuki} that we should all welcome the AG audit and the corrective changes that will hopefully come from it. I also agree with Brian {Shiratsuki} and Nalini {Lazsciewicz} and others who have commented on how our bylaws, despite good intentions by a lot of people, have been a miserable failure in producing functional boards. Of course, people who like things the way they are now will be afraid of what the AG may find or what the AG may do, and are undoubtedly thinking about how they can convince the AG to leave Pacifica alone and let them continue fiddling while Rome burns.

There’s no emergency about responding to the audit. The emergency is the death spiral of Pacifica that the PNB and Pacifica management seems unable or unwilling to stop. I’m hoping that the AG audit and subsequent investigation may stop it, especially if they look hard enough into how the PNB and management have been delinquent. The AG is asking for documentation for which many on the PNB and our LSBs and listeners have been asking, for a long time. I’m glad the AG is forcing Pacifica management to do at least part of its job. It’s unfortunate that the PNB majority did not require them to do that. I’ve been really appalled that so many Directors don’t even seem concerned enough about loss of CPB funds to do anything about that. All this is a real failure of fiduciary duty.

Considering how many false indications we’ve had for many months about when the FY2013 audit would start or be finished, I doubt if all the requested documents can be found or generated. I’m sure the AG is interested, as many of the rest of us are, why Pacifica has failed to produce documents that every other non-profit of comparable size can easily produce without extra effort.

So perhaps the more important questions should be not how do we produce these documents now, but why were they withheld or ignored for so long? And can the AG rescue Pacifica from the terrible situation that our Bylaws (and boards that they produce) have inflicted upon us?

I remember even Arlene {Engelhardt} and LaVarn {Williams} had a lot of trouble getting cooperation from KPFA and KPFK getting info for basic financial reports (balance sheets, income statements/statement of operations, cash flow reports, etc.) as well as the info needed for audits — it was not just Summer {Reese} nor Margy {Wilkinson} who had trouble. And it was even more difficult for the PNB to get the financial reports they needed out of Raul {Salvador}. But at least the audits were done (before 2014). The lack of financial reports, and the difficulty in doing basic bookkeeping like recording all revenue and expenses, and reconciling Memsys (membership/donor) records with Great Plains (general ledger), then going to a second set of books this year separate from Great Plains, and leaving out important items like major donations and event revenue, should make the AG very suspicious and should have been setting off alarm bells in the heads of everyone on the PNB. Either there’s gross incompetence at several of our stations, or people are hiding where the money is going — neither of which will look good to the AG. I assume they’ll be especially concerned about KPFA and KPFK, since those are the Calif. stations. Of course, they’re not the only ones with financial problems.

If embezzling or other misuse of donor funds or other illegal activities have been going on, I doubt if any incriminating evidence will be produced for the AG. Information will either be fabricated or we’ll hear that the info is not available – that it was lost or the dog ate my homework or some similar excuse. If it’s just incompetence and laziness, then maybe at least some of the info will finally be produced now. But either way, I don’t expect people to come forward and admit that they screwed up by not maintaining proper financial records or by misusing funds. We’re more likely to hear the guilty parties saying that the requested info is not important, or trying to shift the blame to others, as we’re already hearing.

The AG investigation is something that responsible and honest Pacificans should be welcoming and hoping it’s as thorough as possible, with consequences as appropriate.

Meanwhile, while management responds to the audit request, I suggest that the PNB concentrate on doing ITS work — things like reviewing and approving budgets that should have been approved back in September (and make sure that the revenue and expense figures are corrected so that they’re reasonable), hiring a impartial general legal counsel for Pacifica, helping with real fundraising, helping to get more listeners and members/supporters, making sure that everything necessary to get CPB funds is done, and developing a plan for Pacifica’s survival (and growth, if we can imagine such a thing) — you know, things that a REAL board should do without anyone telling them to do so.