I read Kristie Wells’ commentary on last week’s meeting of the Committee on Local Government Finance. I have a vastly different perspective on what transpired.

Major Concerns

Although the committee certainly expressed concerns about possible overspending in the General Fund, more than ¾ of the denied budget augmentation was not related to the forensic audit. For some unexplained reason the Tax Department staff report didn’t mention the rest of the $1.5M in unbudgeted expenses, just the $350k for the due diligence audit.

Wells’ summary emphasized the Board’s responsibility for potential overspending, but fails to mention the discussion by the committee of the frequency of similar improper budget augmentations that violate NRS and result in potential overspending. Committee members cited the need for better training for both agency employees and governing bodies like the IVGID Board. It’s ironic to see her blaming any Board member when she and the recall leaders accused Board members of micromanaging and PAC officer and former Trustee Kendra Wong repeatedy insisted that the Board should not question their “professional staff”, including our legal counsel.

Progress on 2024 ACFR

Although IVGID’s independent auditor, Jennifer Farr of Davis-Farr indicated they are currently “on schedule”, she admitted that it would be a “best case scenario” to have the draft ACFR prepared in early December. Wells also neglected to mention that staff had already turned in the May and June 2024 out-of-balance bank reconciliations after putting in their “best efforts”. It’s inconceivable IVGID will have a “clean” ACFR with that kind of discrepancy.

LGFO Report

Just to clarify, Kelly Grahamman, is a Department of Taxation employee who was assigned to review IVGID’s budget; she is not an IVGID employee. Although she cited problems with staffing and potential overspending as a result of the denied budget augmentation, Grahamman’s main concerns included the failed implementation of the Tyler Munis system and the many areas of risk for fraud related to the forensic audit.

IVGID’s Progress

Wells’ summary of efforts to address problems included purchase of enhancements to the Tyler Munis system. In reality, the Board approved a contract to provide implementation and training for a number of features that were part of our original contract. The only “enhancement” is a poor substitute for the failed integration with OpenGov, the public portal to IVGID financials.

CLGF Action

The committee formed a 3 person sub-committee; while it may provide some guidance, its primary purpose is to evaluate and make a recommendation to the full committee on whether the District should be put on Financial Watch or make some other recommendation.

Speculation

Next Wells “speculates” on reasons for Trustee Tulloch’s comment that perhaps IVGID is too big to operate under the “GID” structure.

We already have plenty of evidence that the District is unmanageable and unsustainable. We don’t need to speculate.

Public Comment/Conclusion

I asked the Committee to consider the underlying problem: the so-called facility fees (that bear all the markings of a tax) have allowed IVGID to acquire more assets than it can properly manage and maintain. The CLGF commissioners are mostly current or former public administrators from cities, counties and school districts; I’m sure they must wonder how IVGID manages to assess these so-called fees when they cannot. I hope that will be part of their conversation when they decide whether or not to recommend that IVGID should be placed on Fiscal Watch.

IVGID needs to stop relying on facility fees, use the nearly $4.5M they get in taxes to pay for parks and other less commercial operations and make commercial venues like Champ Golf and DP operate at least at break-even like their privately owned counterparts.

If IVGID doesn’t convince the CLGF it can get its financial house in order, someone else will do it for them.