\t\t\t\t\tWhat’s at stake<\/p>\n
Fresno City Manager Georgeanne White shared with Fresnoland a basic timeline of how city leaders learned of the reported embezzlement of $1.5 million in public grant money from the Fresno Arts Council.<\/p>\n
It includes the Arts Council requesting funding even though it never turned in mandated filings by a Sept. 30 deadline, and insufficient information in a report that the Arts Council ended up giving city officials three months after that deadline. Additionally, the Fresno Arts Council\u2019s executive director went to city officials requesting what her own staff had sent city officials in January before reporting missing funds to the Fresno Police Department.<\/p>\n
It happened during an urgently scheduled Friday noon meeting between the Fresno Arts Council and Fresno City Manager Georgeanne White.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lilia Gonzales Ch\u00e1vez, the executive director of the Arts Council, told White herself that at least $1.5 million had been embezzled by a now-former Council employee.<\/p>\n
All of the missing $1.5 million were Measure P funds, Ch\u00e1vez told White during that Feb. 6 meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really disappointing, you know?\u201d White told Fresnoland in an interview. \u201cThere\u2019s probably not a day or two that go by that I say something like, \u2018You can\u2019t make this up.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
White said she learned in that Friday meeting that Ch\u00e1vez had, at that point, only made a report to the FBI about $1.5 million of embezzled funds, and hadn\u2019t received a response yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI said you need to report this, and she (Ch\u00e1vez) said that she had contacted the FBI, but had not heard back,\u201d White told Fresnoland. \u201cI said we need to contact Fresno PD \u2014 I think they can move faster.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when White got a detective from the Fresno Police Department\u2019s financial crimes unit on the phone, who took a full police report from Ch\u00e1vez later that Friday afternoon in-person, White told Fresnoland.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At a Monday night community meeting<\/a> \u2014 just one business day after the Fresno Police Department opened its investigation \u2014 White spoke with certainty to a room of aggrieved Fresno artists and Measure P grant recipients when she said the embezzled funds from the Arts Council were all public dollars.\u00a0<\/p>\n White\u2019s confidence was based on what Ch\u00e1vez reported to her late last week, before also reporting it to the Fresno Police Department, which is jointly investigating the matter alongside the FBI.\u00a0<\/p>\n If you are a Measure P recipient who has not received the entirety of your Measure P grant, you can contact the City of Fresno directly at (559) \u2013 621 \u2013 2999. You can also send an email to ExpandedArts@fresno.gov<\/a> along with the Measure P grant agreement you entered into with the Fresno Arts Council, as well as any related documentation.<\/p>\n In an interview with Fresnoland, White explained a timeline of events that began with the Fresno Arts Council missing a key Sept. 30 reporting deadline to the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet, despite failing to file required financial reports, the Arts Council still requested funds for the third round of Measure P grants in October, which are supposed to be distributed until the fall of 2026. City officials never turned those funds over to the organization \u2014 a total of $6.6 million.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t speak to their motivation for requesting the funding,\u201d White said of the Arts Council. \u201cAll I can speak to is telling the staff we\u2019re not giving them the funding until they have accounted for and provided the documentation to confirm that the previous funding was spent consistent with the agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n Ch\u00e1vez picked up a phone call from Fresnoland on Wednesday, but she said she is not able to answer any questions from local news media. On Friday night, after reporting the missing $1.5 million to the Fresno Police Department, Ch\u00e1vez sent out a news release to local media<\/a> that said the Arts Council was \u201cthe victim of unauthorized financial transactions.\u201d<\/p>\n Fresnoland reviewed the last decade of the Fresno Arts Council\u2019s most recent tax filings, which were filed for fiscal years 2014 through 2023. The most money in a single year that the Fresno Arts Council handled in that decade was $2.48 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n In November 2023, the Fresno Arts Council received $9.7 million in Measure P tax revenue from the City of Fresno \u2014 nearly 10 times the nonprofit\u2019s average annual revenue of $1 million over the prior decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n That multi-million dollar installment of Measure P funds was for the first round of grants for local arts organizations. In October 2024, the Fresno Arts Council received another $5.7 million in Measure P funds, this time for the second round of Measure P grants for arts organizations.<\/p>\n White told Fresnoland that it\u2019s her understanding the Arts Council paid out all of the first round of Measure P grants. She also told Fresnoland that Ch\u00e1vez sent further information to the city, showing that about $1.5 million of second round Measure P grants have not been disbursed yet.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if that $1,597,434 \u2014 is it a coincidence that it\u2019s close to the $1.5 million that was allegedly taken?\u201d White told Fresnoland. \u201cAll I have is a spreadsheet provided by the Arts Council. I don\u2019t have an independent review and that has got to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n White said she hopes the Fresno Police Department and the FBI jointly investigating the missing money will be able to answer that question.\u00a0<\/p>\n If it did come out of the second round of Measure P funds, it could mean the reported embezzling of $1.5 million would have allegedly taken place after October 2024.<\/p>\n A three-month late \u2018data dump\u2019 with insufficient information<\/p>\n Back in September, a coalition of local artists and advocates lambasted the Fresno Arts Council and a private city subcommittee \u2014 both working together to create recommendations for Measure P grant awards. They questioned whether that subcommittee should be meeting in private<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Almost simultaneously, city officials were dealing with their own lack of transparency from the Arts Council as well.<\/p>\n After the Fresno Arts Council failed to meet a Sept. 30 reporting deadline, and was not given round three Measure P funding \u2014 which are supposed to be allocated to local arts organizations this fall \u2014 Ch\u00e1vez gave city officials a report on Nov. 13.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was completely insufficient,\u201d White told Fresnoland. \u201cIt didn\u2019t contain any of the detailed financial reporting information that was due.\u201d<\/p>\n White said city staff sent a Nov. 21 letter to Ch\u00e1vez requesting the proper financial reporting.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t until Jan. 9, White said, when the Arts Council finally handed over more information to city officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n But as she said at the Monday evening community meeting, it was \u201ca data dump.\u201d White clarified to Fresnoland that city staff received that information in January, not the beginning of December.\u00a0<\/p>\n White also clarified that it took three weeks for city staff to go through what the Arts Council turned over to the city in January.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re required to submit copies of bank statements, check ledgers, and not all of that was provided,\u201d White said. \u201cThey provided a list of payments, but it didn\u2019t say who the payments were made to.\u201d<\/p>\n On Friday, Jan. 30, city staff sent a new letter to the Arts Council requesting sufficient information.\u00a0<\/p>\n White told Fresnoland that the very next Monday, on Feb. 1, Ch\u00e1vez sent an email to city staff asking for a copy of what her own staff had sent over on Jan. 9.\u00a0<\/p>\n While the City of Fresno\u2019s Tuesday public statement<\/a> said a Fresno Arts Council board member contacted the city about the missing money, White told Fresnoland that Ch\u00e1vez had already reached out to set up a meeting with White as soon as possible earlier that same day.<\/p>\n White and Ch\u00e1vez met the very next day, Friday, Feb. 6 \u2014 where Ch\u00e1vez, for the first time, reported to the city that $1.5 million in Measure P funds were missing, before White connected her with the Fresno Police Department to make a formal report.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know how much information they knew, and when,\u201d White said. \u201cAll I know is what they told me, whether or not that\u2019s accurate, I don\u2019t know. They said that they had uncovered this, and they were embarrassed about it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I don\u2019t know yet about community outreach\u2019<\/p>\n Fresno\u2019s highest-ranking city officials emerged from a rare Tuesday special closed session with a written public statement<\/a>, which included a sharp criticism of the Fresno Arts Council.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Mayor and members of the City Council are appalled by the lack of safeguards put in place<\/p>\n by the Fresno Arts Council, which ultimately allowed this embezzlement to occur,\u201d city officials said in the statement.<\/p>\n The statement made clear that the city will take over administering of Measure P grant money<\/a>. White said the specifics of how that works aren\u2019t fully hashed out yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, one thing is certain to White: She said the city needs to take control of administering Measure P funds for arts organizations.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t feel like I can trust another agency to move forward right now,\u201d White told Fresnoland. \u201cI\u2019m very comfortable knowing what internal controls that we have in place with the city, not that we\u2019re perfect, but we have done a lot of work in the finance department over the last three years, updating all of our policies and procedures and internal controls.\u201d<\/p>\n She also said she understands community frustrations about transparency, and said the city will ensure the third round of Measure P\u2019s grantmaking process will be transparent.<\/p>\n Fresnoland asked her what role community engagement and feedback will play in how the City of Fresno administers Measure P funds. White said she doesn\u2019t have specifics on that just yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know yet about community outreach,\u201d White told Fresnoland, \u201cbut I do know that when the city is very well-versed and used to complying with the Brown Act, and posting meeting agendas and having minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n The City of Fresno is actually in the middle of an active lawsuit<\/a>, which alleges city leaders violated California\u2019s Brown Act with its budget process for five consecutive years.\u00a0<\/p>\n The lawsuit, filed by the ACLU of Northern California and the First Amendment Coalition, was triggered<\/a> by an August 2023 Fresnoland investigation<\/a> into the City of Fresno\u2019s budget process.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What’s at stake Fresno City Manager Georgeanne White shared with Fresnoland a basic timeline of how city leaders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,80880,114,113,25390,83595],"class_list":{"0":"post-175333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-arts-council","10":"tag-fresno-headlines","11":"tag-fresno-news","12":"tag-measure-p","13":"tag-measure-p-grants"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175333","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=175333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}