Hide the moneeeys!

It's been an adventurous couple of years for the Convention Center.  Seems like every few months they have to come up with a brand new way to hide their slush fund stash from somebody.  Recall during the height of negotiations with Cantrell administration over what eventually came to be known as the "fair share" deal, they rolled out a slate of make-work projects they could commit funds to in order to look like they had less available to share fairly.  

"Fair share" turned out to be a pretty favorable deal for them anyway. But even so, they immediately set to work shuffling money around in order to use its new hotel project as a kind of tax shelter to further reduce their eventual contribution.  

And, of course, when the pandemic hit, local hospitality workers began organizing to demand their own fair share of the stash.   This, in turn, set off a new round of creative accounting by the Convention Center in order to hide as much of it as possible. Which is why, this week, as they claim that the reserve fund is dwindling, it's harder than ever to discern what they actual have left. 

The Convention Center recently changed how it categorized different pockets of assets, leading to the appearance that its reserves are quickly dwindling. 

In a November report, the Convention center claimed it had $215 million in unrestricted assets — money that isn’t earmarked by law or contract for a specific purpose — at the end of July. Thursday’s report claimed that the center only had $43 million in unrestricted assets left. 

The pandemic-related drawdown is only $49 million thus far, so that doesn’t explain the entire decrease. Most of the difference is caused by an accounting change, specifically a change in how the Convention Center categorizes their assets on financial documents. Instead of “unrestricted” assets versus “restricted” assets, the center is now using the categories of “unrestricted” assets versus “restricted and designated assets.”

Thursday’s report says that along with the $43 million in unrestricted assets, the center also has $209 million in “designated or restricted” assets. 

The 2019 independent audit includes definitions of “restricted” and “designated” assets. Restricted assets include “capital projects, funded by the proceeds of taxes, restricted for building expansion and improvements.” Designated assets, meanwhile, can include money for projects that are “in the planning stages, or in the acquisition phase.”

That article also says we might expect an announcement next month on cuts, perhaps to the 400 or so workers the Convention Center employs.   The accountants, on the other hand, will probably be expecting a raise.