|
 McMurtrey reported that the Bureau had received the hotel/motel
tax payment for February and that it had been considerably higher
than expected. She noted that February was usually a slower month
for motel visits, but it appeared that Lincoln motels had a pretty
good month this year.
She also explained that two checks issued in 2015 had not arrived at
their proper destinations. She said she had heard from the Lincoln
Heritage Museum that they did not receive their grant funds for the
Lincoln Colloquium, and the Railsplitter did not receive its check.
Therefore, she had to cancel those two payments from 2015 and
re-issue them.
McMurtrey was asked about an expenditure for training, and she
explained that she had attended the Governor’s Conference on Tourism
and that it had been a valuable experience. She also noted later in
the meeting that she had the opportunity to talk to other tourism
directors and ask them about their successes.
Gail Sasse inquired about an attorney fee expenditure. McMurtrey
explained that attorney’s had been hired to assist with the new
filings for the Bureau change of name and its new 501c3, and now the
legal team was working on the new by-laws for the Bureau. There were also questions about the dollars paid to the Logan County
Alliance by the Tourism Bureau.
McMurtrey explained that the Bureau pays 30 percent of the salary
for the Administrative Assistant, the Event Coordinator, the
bookkeeper, and when there is one, the LCA’s Chief Executive
Officer.
 The Bureau also pays 100 percent of McMurtrey’s salary to the LCA,
who in turn writes her paycheck. She noted that the LCA gets nothing
from Tourism for the Chamber membership person because that person
does nothing for tourism. Likewise, she said none of her pay comes
from the chamber because she does nothing for them.
Steve Parrott asked what the CEO does for the Tourism Bureau.
McMurtrey said that previously it had been a lot. She offered as
examples that the CEO had been responsible for seeing to it that the
legal aspects of the reorganization of the Bureau were accomplished.
The CEO had also been responsible for filing the new 501c3.
The CEO is responsible for seeing to it that the Tourism Bureau is
always included under the LCA umbrella. She explained, “Making sure
our website is equally represented with the Alliance and that any
time the Alliance is mentioned, that Tourism is under that umbrella
with the Alliance."
She went on to say that the CEO offers the supervisory position for
the entire group. It is the job of the CEO to be sure that the
Tourism Bureau is getting its 30 percent of the other employees. She
said, “When Andi (Hake) was CEO a lot of it was ‘are you doing your
30 percent for tourism’ because I (McMurtrey) am not their direct
supervisor.” She said luckily that wasn’t a big issue with the
staff, and that the Bureau received its fair share from them without
much urging.
Sasse asked Pollice if he, as a member of the LCA board, would be
included in the hiring of the new CEO, and would he make sure to
represent the needs of the Tourism Bureau in that selection. Pollice
said, “Absolutely, for me that is incredibly important.”
McMurtrey said she too had reviewed the job description of the new
CEO position.
NOTE: With Hake’s
departure, dissolution of the Economic Development arm of the LCA,
and the desire to push toward membership, the job description of the
CEO has been redefined by the LCA.
McMurtrey said, “I wanted to make sure that the job description says
that Tourism is represented, you oversee our budgets, you oversee
our financials, you make sure that I do everything in the right
essentially. We only get 30 percent of your time, so I want that 30
percent to count, I want substance, not fluff.”
 Pollice also offered some explanation of the current structure in
the LCA/Chamber/Tourism office. He said that Hake had agreed to work
for the LCA on a day-to-day basis until the new CEO is hired. He
said that it was a contract position and that the LCA dictated the
duties Hake would perform in the absence of a CEO. He noted there
had been suggestions from Hake of work to do, where the LCA had
declined the offer, so they were in control of what work Hake was
performing. He also noted that Donna Boyd, who is now retired from a
management position at Regions Bank, was offering day-to-day
oversight of operations.
In looking at the financial records and comparing last year to this,
Taylor noted a few expense lines where it appeared there were huge
differences in expenditures year to year. McMurtrey said she
couldn’t answer for all of that, but her theory was that because
there had been so many transitions of tourism director in 2014,
perhaps there were expenses that didn’t get posted when they should
have but showed up later on as the bureau got caught up on its
record keeping. She noted that there had been a number of directors
in 2014 and that after the departure of Sarah Wallick, Hake had been
asked to assume the director role in addition to her role as CEO of
the Alliance.
This brought a question from Parrott, how was Hake paid. McMurtrey
noted that had been a comment in a newspaper article, where that the
author had stated Hake got a “big bonus” from Tourism. She said that
was not the case. Hake got a portion of the Tourism Director salary,
in addition to her salary as CEO.
[to top of second column] |
Parrott asked if the Bureau could justify that Hake spent extra hours of her
time, in addition to her CEO hours, dedicated just to Tourism. McMurtrey said
she believed so. McMurtrey was new to the Tourism Bureau early in 2015, for
herself, McMurtrey said Hake’s work on the new state grant application and the
states year-end review documents had been invaluable because McMurtrey was new
and didn’t have first-hand knowledge of the previous year’s transactions.
McMurtrey explains Bureau’s audit procedure
Under new business on the agenda, McMurtrey said she had the 2013 audit included
in the meeting packet. She said that for this round the auditors are Kerber,
Eck, and Braeckel (KEB) of Springfield. She said that the auditors would be in
the office on Tuesday to get more information for the 2014 audit.
She explained that the Bureau by-laws indicate that one audit should be done
every three years, and include a three-year period. For this round, the audit
will be for the years 2013, 2014, and 2015. She said that the Bureau’s by-laws
are currently being re-written, and the board will have the opportunity to
decide if they wish to continue a three-year cycle or move to an annual audit.
She also noted that because the Bureau receives grant money from the State of
Illinois, the state does an audit every three years that coincides with the same
period as the Bureaus independent audit.
Sasse asked why KEB was selected. McMurtrey said that the by-laws state that the
Bureau can have the same auditor only for three consecutive periods, then a new
auditor must be hired. She said Abbott and Associates had done their three
periods, so a new auditor was hired. McMurtrey noted that she could not answer
the question as to how they were selected because she was not employed by the
Bureau at that time.
Parrott asked if there have been any findings in the audit. McMurtrey said to
her knowledge no. She said there would be a management letter at the end of
2014.
She said that the letter would mention the turnover of staff. McMurtrey said, “I
talked to the auditors about this. It will essentially say it is an entirely new
staff, so some of the questions (asked), the staff might not have been there
for. They explained it would be more about operations things, and the only
reason they will have to write the management letter is because the staff is not
the same.”
She said the reports that are prepared include the grant compliance report and
the auditor’s report of compliance.
McMurtrey also explained that KEB will be doing mini audits or audit reviews for
the calendar year 2015. She said that 2015 was unique because it was mid-way
through the year with the Bureau officially transitioned from the Abraham
Lincoln Tourism Bureau to the Logan County Tourism Bureau and filed new paper
work with the state for its 501c3. Because of this, KEB has to treat the Bureau
as two different agencies in 2015 and will conduct a mini-audit for the Abe
portion of the year, and another mini-audit for the Logan County Tourism portion
of the year.
Sasse asked if this was part of the issue the city was having with the Tourism
Bureau right now. Steve Parrott said that the city didn’t start the issue nor
are they making any accusations. He said a constituent had brought forth
concerns, and the city council was inclined to follow through on them.
McMurtrey said the city council had voted for an official audit, but as of
Monday night, no request had been issued to the Bureau by the city. She said
that in her opinion, the Bureau should consent to the audit just as a matter of
maintaining transparency. She said that the Tourism Bureau has the option to say
yes, or to ask the city to review its audit and then decide whether or not an
additional audit is needed.
“In my opinion, as a tourism bureau, any time we have an audit we should give it
to the city because they are the ones who pay 85 percent of the budget,"
McMurtrey said.
Pollice noted that the 2015 mini audits had not been started yet. He wondered if
the auditors had given any indication when those audits would be completed.
McMurtrey said no, but with it being only one year, it surely wouldn’t take
long.
Pollice asked if the city would want a time frame for that 2015 report. Parrott
said it was a good question, and he didn’t have the answer. He went on to say,
he felt that the city would be patient, so as to assure everything had been done
in the proper manner. McMurtrey qualified that saying, “as long as we don’t drag
it out.” Parrott agreed.
McMurtrey also noted that she would be on the agenda on Tuesday, March 29th for
the Financial Transparency Year End Review. She said that she would present the
2015 Profit and Loss documents to the city that night.
As this portion of the evening came to an end, Pollice told McMurtrey that he
would like for her to go ahead and try to get some timelines established with
the auditors that can be shared with the city council. McMurtrey repeated that
the auditors will be in her office this week, and she will do what she can to
get that information nailed down.
[Nila Smith] |
