A quick programming note about the Jefferson Performing Arts Society Audit
Folks if this JPAS deal isn’t a complete alignment of all the stars I don’t know what is but time is short and I am still processing information. Yes, the internal audit is absolutely devastating but there is more to this story than meets the eye so a quick explanation is in order.
I noticed something was not right when our own Prince Charming, a commenter not known for showing any mercy to those featured and especially commenting on this blog exhibit some toward JPAS executive director Dennis “Maestro” Assaf. Prince was not alone. Yesterday afternoon I received a communique from a reader pointing out that Assaf’s recently deceased father is a member of the tribe, a somewhat legendary one at that. Both these readers knew what was fixing to happen here on Slabbed thus the additional information.
And what was fixing to happen to Maestro on these pages? Allow me to illustrate:
And why would I draw steel, slice and dice? Simple, a concept known as heuristics:
Heuristic (pron.: /hjʉˈrɪstɨk/; or /hyoo-ris-tik/; Greek: “Εὑρίσκω”, “find” or “discover”) refers to experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery. Where the exhaustive search is impractical, heuristic methods are used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution; mental short cuts to ease the cognitive load of making a decision. Examples of this method include using a rule of thumb, an educated guess, an intuitive judgment, or common sense. In more precise terms, heuristics are strategies using readily accessible, though loosely applicable, information to control problem solving in human beings and machines.
A brief elaboration on what this has to do with Slabbed, JPAS and my participation in the media congroovancy is in order. See folks journalists often interview people and use the information gleaned from an interview to build a story. Auditors, which I am trained, interview people and use the information gleaned from an interview to satisfy an audit objective that is ultimately used in a report for use by others that make credit decisions etc based upon that information. Auditing often tests true false conditions such as whether the auditee is in compliance with loan covenants for example. In that circumstance and many others the answer is either true (the company meets the covenants) or false (they do not). Worth noting is the term auditor is derived from the Greek word ακουστικός which means hearing.
So how did Dennis Assaf react to the preliminary findings? He had a melt down and blamed the messenger. He minimized the problems, dismissing them as “sloppy bookkeeping” while engaging a public relations campaign against Travers Mackels. And what inevitably happens to such people here? Refer to the above.
Maestro is liked in the community because the programs he runs at JPAS for the community are well done. But he also makes $165K a year and is supposedly running a not for profit business that is taxpayer supported and that is just as important as his financial house is clearly not in order. My professional recommendation is get a hold of yourself Maestro because the media is smelling blood in the water. Even worse so is Chris Roberts. ;-)
His salary increases reek of Tom Wilkinson. He might well deserve the shellacking his is going to take, but what Mackel did was very amateurish, in my opinion. I missed the part where the “Zurik wannabe” stated that Asaaf refused repeated attempts for an interview. So why ambush him before an event with public attention? This was not wind-blown Debbie Villio trying to avoid Val Bracy like the plague.
I do not really know Asaaf, and I am certainly no apologist for the corrupt. He comes off as a nice guy who is extremely dedicated to what he does. Might he actually be a corrupt POS? Sure.
There was just a much more professional way for a reporter to do this. But in the interest of getting the story first, Mackel (and his hair) did the standard “drive-by.”
Prince Charming
February 21, 2013 at 9:56 am
Holy Pitiful Performing Poo-Poo Batman, $165,000 a year and we’re bitching about the $$$$$ what Whitmer,Wilkinson and Parker were sucking from the parish’s 38DDD tits via Lil’ Napoleon’s “Love Boat” administration.
The next expected comment from ASSaf will probably be that he will take his 35 years worth of expertise to another community that is more appreciative.
Ok,den how bout startin’ wit da’ St. Bernard Performing Arts Center right dere’ on Judge Perez. You could done got your scrimps po-boy at Rocky&Carlo’s den go laugh yo’ ASS af at da’ Center.
lockemuptight
February 21, 2013 at 10:41 am
I’ll say that Mr. Assaf’s greatest flaw is the level of commitment that he approaches his responsibility as head of JPAS pretty significantly, a measure that can be overwhelming. He’s an asset that JPAS needs to keep, but he needs to be sent to some sort of “running a non-profit 101″ so that he keeps the auditors and the Chris “Sell/leak you down the river” Roberts at bay.
Hillie's Date
February 22, 2013 at 9:57 pm
The time for remediation may have passed:
http://www.wdsu.com/news/investigations/I-Team-State-lawmaker-seeks-investigation-into-JPAS-money-management/-/13627428/19027124/-/xo3sme/-/index.html
If Assaf thought the Parish’s internal auditor was bad…….
The only thing I wondered after reading the preliminary report is whether there is any coordination between internal audit and the Parish Attorney’s office. I’ve benefited from having a trained lawyer review my findings and recommendations on occasion. Tommy Fikes was very thorough in his review and it appears the Parish has a keeper in internal audit.
I’d like to point out some of my earliest work on the corruption scandal surrounded Broussard, with the active participation of the Parish council, eliminating the Parish’s internal audit department in total just after Katrina on a false premise that sales tax collections would decrease after Katrina.
http://www.slabbed.org/2010/01/27/is-there-an-auditor-in-the-house/
http://www.slabbed.org/2010/03/02/is-there-an-auditor-in-the-house-part-deux-slabbed-takes-a-quick-look-at-west-jefferson-service-corp/
Doug Handshoe
February 23, 2013 at 9:57 am
I love the comment of Rep. Henry Cameron from Metairie:
“There seems to be no accountability whatsoever in the daily spending”
LMAA- Laughing My Ass-af
The only accountability occurs AFTER a news bite exposes the corruption and misspending and not BEFORE certain public officials make their cameo appearances in plays of the JPAS, like John Young recently did.
And once the corruption is exposed all the typical officials swear they new nothing about it and then do sound bites out their asses as to how they are going to stop it.
To make JPAS profitable without Parish or State subsides the JPAS should advertise and sell tickets to all JP Council meetings as said meetings always feature Emmy, Oscar award winning performances by some damn good lying actors/ actresses.
lockemuptight
February 23, 2013 at 11:58 am
A little birdie came singing at my window about the Assaf family trust aka JPAS. This birdie claims Assaf, his wife and other close relatives have been at the JPAS trough for decades with little or no supervision or accounting. And this little birdie also sang about the Foundation members , such as that paragon of troughdom, Alan Gandolfi ( yes of the Jefferson Parish Research and Budget director fame who assisted Tom Wilkinson for many years). Oh what a song she sang.
unslabbed
February 23, 2013 at 5:42 pm