While there was no evidence of any specific kinds of fraud, questions remain about the City of Jackson’s dealings with the owners of the Jackson Generals, the Southern League’s Double A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
An independent investigation of expenditures from the City to Generals was conducted by Alan Crone, and Catherine Walsh, of The Crone Law Firm in conjunction with Cindy MacAulay, Director, of Dixon Hughes Goodman.
Alan Crone told Jackson Mayor Scott Conger and members of the City Council, the City was accommodating when it came to reimbursing the Generals – particularly during the season, because Crone believed it had to do with cash flow issues.
“It appears to me – reading the emails – there was a level of trust between the Generals and the (city) administration, that if the Generals said, ‘we spent this money,’ they were trusted in that – and there was a lot of top-down effort to make sure the Generals got paid – when they needed the money.
“Sometimes that meant they cut corners in terms of breaking (splitting) up the invoices – done in part to speed the check process.”
Splitting invoices meant An invoice over $10,000 has to be approved by the city council; an invoice under $10,000 could be administratively processed without the council’s knowledge or approval.
Crone said he and his team reviewed invoices, expense supporting documentation, check information, etc., from the Club for the years 2012 through 2020.
- 3,400 rows of data entered and analyzed, including thousands of PDF invoices and supporting documentation.
- 2,000,000+ items were collected, processed and hosted (including over 500,000 emails) from Al Laffoon, Karen Bell, Jason Compton and former Mayor Jerry Gist’s mailboxes
- Interviewed Karen Bell, Susan White, Bobby Arnold and Jason Compton
- Reconciled City check register data to City invoice data
Crone also added there was - Lack of appropriate oversight
- Lack of financial clarity due to multiple general ledger accounts
- Lack of supporting documentation
- In-kind transactions/trades
- Split invoices
- Duplicate payments and potential overpayments
Generals refunded $8,523 of duplicate payments during the investigation
In one email from Susan White to Al Laffoon (city employees), White wrote ‘I will change the amount on the requisition and send to you.’
Laffoon replied – ‘Definitely YES – Betty (Wilson, Laffoon’s secretary) will change the invoice and I will initial it – just need Susan to send us an approved P.O.’
About 60 percent of the $5 million the Generals requested for reimbursement had no supporting documentation.
Paul Taylor said he and the other eight City Council members reviewed both the comptroller’s report and the report from the Crone Law Firm in terms of the relationship the City had with the Generals.
“We identified a number of findings and put together a plan of action to address those findings – both in a financial nature and accounting nature – but also an operational nature,”Taylor said, “Over the upcoming months we will continue to dive into this and make sure we are putting the pieces together … making sure we are being transparent and accountable to the taxpayers.”
(PHOTO: Jackson Mayor Scott Conger and members of the city council look at the findings from the Crone Law Firm, Tuesday)
