2.10.26 Statement<\/a><\/p>\nMayor Jerry Dyer, Council President Mike Karbassi and Council Vice President Nelson Esparza
would like to provide the following statement regarding the embezzlement of $1.5 million of
Measure P funds from the Fresno Arts Council.<\/p>\n
On the evening of February 5, 2026, the City of Fresno was notified by a board member of the
Fresno Arts Council that an employee of the Arts Council had embezzled approximately $1.5
million dollars of Measure P funding.<\/p>\n
The employee no longer works for the Arts Council.<\/p>\n
The following day a criminal investigation was initiated by the Fresno Police Department.
The Arts Council received its first cycle of funding totaling $9,722,600 for the first two years of
Measure P. Those funds were distributed by the Arts Council to members of the arts community.<\/p>\n
The Arts Council received $5,710,556 for a second cycle of funding on October 1, 2024. The Arts
Council distributed the vast majority of those funds to members of the arts community, with a
percentage still being owed due to having a shortage of funds as a result of the embezzlement.<\/p>\n
The Arts Council requested a third cycle of funding from the City of Fresno in October 2025. That
request, totaling $6,630,767, was denied by the City of Fresno due to the Arts Council not
providing sufficient documentation to justify prior expenditures, as mandated by their reporting
requirements.<\/p>\n
Applications for the third cycle of funding will be initiated and administered by the City of Fresno
and not the Arts Council.<\/p>\n
In addition to initiating a criminal investigation, the City of Fresno has cancelled the contract with
the Arts Council to administer any future Measure P funding. A forensic financial investigation
of the Arts Council will also be conducted by the City of Fresno.<\/p>\n
It is the City\u2019s intent to utilize future Measure P funding to make those organizations whole who
were owed money by the Arts Council. How that occurs is yet to be determined.<\/p>\n
The Mayor and members of the City Council are appalled by the lack of safeguards put in place
by the Fresno Arts Council, which ultimately allowed this embezzlement to occur.<\/p>\n
The loss of $1.5 million of taxpayer dollars is unacceptable. The City of Fresno will pursue every
available avenue to recover these hard-earned taxpayer funds up to and to include litigation.<\/p>\n
Any awardees who have yet to be fully compensated can call 559-621-2999 or send an email to
ExpandedArts@fresno.gov along with the agreement they had entered into with the Fresno Arts
Council and any other relevant information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, CA (KMJ)\u00a0 The fallout from the embezzlement scandal rocking the Fresno Arts Council has taken another turn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-175359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-headlines","10":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175359","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=175359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}