By: Diane Benjamin
Previously I’ve reported CIAM (Central Illinois Arena Management) reports profits and losses that aren’t close to what the auditor reports: http://blnnews.com/2015/01/20/more-coliseum-fraud/.
How are the CIAM numbers so far off? (Almost $600,000 last year?)
Easy! CIAM creates the report, CIAM has no reason to tell the truth, so they report whatever they want.
Example: Salaried employees
The Coliseum website shows the same major employees that have been there for years. Salaried means they get paid the same amount every month. So how do they explain this:
1st Quarter Salaried $172,476.93 http://www.cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=7358
2nd Quarter Salaried $232,780.24 http://www.cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=7613
3rd Quarter Salaried $248,254.84 http://www.cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=8264
Salaries from the 1st Quarter to the 3rd Quarter changed by $75,777.91? Did CIAM hire someone so they can lose more money, or are they playing with the numbers to look better? Salaries are a SECRET, so we don’t know.
In the 4th Quarter last year CIAM reported Salaries of $228,713.39. Salaries are a fixed expense, so how does the number dramatically change? http://www.cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=7448
John Butler and Bart Rogers not only get Commissions and a Management fees, they pay themselves salaries that could be $100,000 a year or more. Of course salaries are a secret – at least until the Attorney General rules. You are not supposed to know, according to CIAM.
I can tell you how much CIAM took in Management Fees and Commissions per the audited statements (See paragraph toward the end):
Per the Auditor:
Amounts paid to CIAM under this agreement totaled $314,814 during the year ended April 30, 2014. http://www.cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=7481
Amounts paid to ClAM under this agreement totaled $306,338 during the year ended April 30, 2013. (Not on website: Coliseum Final Audit Report 2013)
Amounts paid to CIAM under this agreement totaled $280,213 during the year ended April 30, 2012. (Not on website: FY 12 Coliseum Final Audit Report)
Amounts paid to CIAM under this agreement totaled $270,557 during the year ended April 30, 2011. (Not on website: 2011 – Coliseum Audit Report)
Amounts paid to CIAM under this agreement totaled $217,934 during the year ended April 30, 2010. (Not on website: 10 -Coliseum Final Audit Report)
5 year total: $1,389,856
How is CIAM making more money while showing bigger and bigger losses every year?
The $1,389,856 DOES NOT include whatever salaries John Butler and Bart Rogers paid themselves – that’s a secret.
The $1,389,856 DOES NOT include whatever BMI Concessions (John Butler) earned – also a secret!
Meanwhile, taxpayers are being fleeced for another $2,510,000 budgeted this year for improvements.
(http://blnnews.com/2015/02/27/coliseum-2510000/)
Sick of David Hales, Tari Renner, and the potted plants yet?
Ward 4 candidate Amelia Buragas stated at a debate the Coliseum shouldn’t be expected to show a profit.
.
Elections April 7th.
If you stay home – they win.
they must either be really trying to pull over a fast one on the City or the media since they were off big time on their reported expenses and revenues….or have really bad bookkeepers or accountants.
Coliseum report for 2014
$3,981,925 in revenue
Auditors
$3,864,740 in revenue
Difference $117,185
Coliseum report for 2014
$4,165,652 in expenses
Auditors
$4,647,685 in expenses (minus the $854,532 in depreciation)
Difference $482,033
So you add up the revenue and expenses (which are to the negative) that totals up to being off ($117,185 revenues and $482,033) $599,218!!!
How can they be so far off?
A friend of mine who attended the debate also noted that Buragas also stated she didn’t mind spending another $ .01 of a dollar in taxes as she conveniently neglected to note that the going rate for a attorney in this town is $225 per hour and she is an attorney. Can you say, elitist?
I was there. She gave that 1 cent per dollar number as justification for the recent school tax increase (which failed). To her 1 cent per dollar is nothing. To most people it is something.
Also, her only suggestion for saving money was to stop outsourcing attorney work and bring it back to the city. Even if her office does not get that work, other law offices will, and then a different law office will have to pick up work from them. Demand increases so price increases. I thought conservatives were the only people involved in crony capitalism.
Democrats invented it – the GOP just saw how lucrative it could be.