{"id":171802,"date":"2026-02-10T12:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T12:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/171802\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T12:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T12:12:11","slug":"1-5-million-fresno-arts-council-embezzlement-leaves-artists-outraged-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/171802\/","title":{"rendered":"$1.5 million Fresno Arts Council embezzlement leaves artists outraged"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the shocking news that a longtime, now-former Fresno Art Council employee stole $1.5 million in taxpayer funds, the Fresno art community is voicing its outrage, knowing that dollars dedicated to funding their projects are now corrupted.<\/p>\n

“It really makes your head spin as to how the city does business and how it’s doing business with third parties,” said Ome Lopez.<\/p>\n

She hosted the group at her studio, Dulce Upfront, in Central Fresno, along with Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias and city manager Georgeanne White.<\/p>\n

The artists sat hoping for answers, but ultimately learned little.<\/p>\n

White confirmed that the city of Fresno will administer funds going forward, saying, “It’s my preference that we administer the program moving forward. What exactly that’s going to look like? I don’t know yet.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Arias did not walk back their decision to leave the FAC in full control of that money.<\/p>\n

“I believe we made the right decision, to hear on the side of a community organization that had the unanimous support of the community, the arts and culture community, to have them be the ones to administer a grants program,” the councilmember said.<\/p>\n

Just last year, program recipients raised concerns about how funds were distributed, claiming a lack of transparency from the FAC.<\/p>\n

The city chose not to act on its accusations.<\/p>\n

RELATED: FBI, Fresno Police investigate alleged $1.5 million embezzlement of taxpayer funds<\/a><\/p>\n

But today, artists learned that the city had witnessed poor practices from the FAC firsthand, citing late and messy financial reports, which White called “data dumps.”<\/p>\n

“It’s not that we’re overwhelmed. It’s just that when we contract with people who are required to present information to us in a certain way, we expect them to follow, to follow the process,” White said.<\/p>\n

Artists are now left wondering why action wasn’t taken earlier.<\/p>\n

“When they weren’t receiving the proper data, and they’re continuing not to get that, they’re hearing from last year and this year that people are disgruntled… then it falls on deaf ears. We’re not surprised that $1.5 million was embezzled,” Lopez said.<\/p>\n

Council President Mike Karbassi did not mince words regarding the FAC. writing a statement to Action News,<\/p>\n

“What I want to understand is what safeguards were not in place that allowed someone to steal over $1.5 million taxpayer dollars from a local nonprofit. I think our days partnering with the Arts Council and Measure P are over.”<\/p>\n

The name of the suspect behind the massive theft has not yet been released.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the shocking news that a longtime, now-former Fresno Art Council employee stole $1.5 million in taxpayer funds,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[2392,82277,112,114,113,82275,82276,81664],"class_list":{"0":"post-171802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-central-fresno","9":"tag-dulce-upfront","10":"tag-fresno","11":"tag-fresno-headlines","12":"tag-fresno-news","13":"tag-georgeanne-white","14":"tag-ome-lopez","15":"tag-taxpayer-funds"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}