Jefferson Banner - Opinion
John Foust - Chamber
Two Sets of Books at the Jefferson Chamber of Commerce?

By John Foust

In December 2001 while the Jefferson City Council debated whether to release $8,500 to the Chamber of Commerce, it slipped out that the Chamber has a reserve fund of $30,000.  Who knew about it?  Apparently not even the Chamber of Commerce Board, and certainly not the City Council.

Even after the unauthorized retirement fund scandal, and the termination of the Commerce and Industry Association, the City Council voted to release the funds.  It was a close vote.

From what I can tell, very few if any Chamber Board members knew about this money. Even several past Presidents didn't know about it, much less any Chamber members, much less the Council or the public.

It's as if there were two sets of books, and the existence of this fund was actively and purposefully hidden from the Chamber Board, the membership, as well as the Council and the taxpayers who've been subsidizing the Chamber.

For quite some time I tried to allow Chamber members to see the financial details of the organization.  You can read about that here if you like.

I never believed the monthly statement to be accurate, and it certainly wasn't detailed to the per-check level.  I believe the only person who dealt with the minute details of the Chamber was Executive Director David Olsen.  Olsen fought my requests, and led the Chamber Board to oppose them, too.  Apparently I was opposed even by Chamber presidents who didn't know about the $30,000. 

My effort to let Chamber members see all the details of its own finances failed.  My resolution didn't get enough votes.  It culminated when the Chamber Board passed a resolution instructing the staff to stop responding to any of my questions.  I hope at least some Chamber Board members will regret that my resolution failed.  If it had passed, they might've learned their organization was $30,000 richer than they thought.

I've spoken with people who've attended the Chamber meeting for years, and who say they never knew about this fund. Apparently the Chamber Board itself wasn't even informed of its existence!

The $30,000 was only added to the Chamber's balance sheet as a separate, accurate item after the November 2001 meeting.  It showed up for the first time on the December 2001 financials.  From what I've heard, the money would briefly appear as "retained earnings" in January, then disappear from the monthly Quickbooks financial statements until the next year when the CDs were renewed. It's as if the money wasn't there.

This is clearly improper accounting. It needed to be showed as an asset during the entire year. Was this discovered in the audit performed this summer? If so, why did it take months for the finances to be corrected?

You've got to ask yourself a number of other questions:

  • Is this the only fund that was hidden in this way?  
  • Who knew about it, and when? Whose signature is on the paperwork for the CDs?  
  • Shouldn't the Chamber Board have been told about it?  
  • Didn't the Council deserve an accurate financial picture every time the Chamber proclaimed poverty and imminent financial doom, requesting more and more funds from the City?
  • Where did this CD money come from? How did Chamber funds flow into this CD? How many CDs are there, and in what denomination?  Where did the interest go?
  • Was an early withdrawal penalty the only reason the Council didn't want the Chamber to cash in its CDs to pay for its own Executive Director? If so, did anyone even ask what the penalty would be?
  • Why does the Council reward financial shenanigans like this, and like Olsen's handling of his self-made retirement fund?

Certainly $30,000 is a lot of money for a Jefferson organization to hold in reserve, year after year. Was the Chamber salting away money in the same years it was receiving thousands in direct funding from the Council? All these years of CIA funding, the Chamber said it didn't have the ability to pay for its own Director.  Having a full-time director paid by the City is quite a subsidy, too, unequalled by any other private organization in town.