DALLAS (KRLD) - Leaders of the group responsible for bringing more conventions and visitors to Dallas are responding to an audit that criticized the tracking of city funds and the CEO's business expenses. Visit Dallas receives funding from hotel taxes collected in Dallas.
"For more than a year Visit Dallas has worked with our auditors, answering all questions and requests from the city Auditor," said Visit Dallas Board Chair Mark Woeffler, who is also the General Manager of the Sheraton Dallas Hotel. Visit Dallas has worked diligently to adhere to the terms of the contractual agreement with the City of Dallas. Most of what the audit yields is a collection of new recommendations and suggestions for supplemental reporting...and an added layer of oversight. In fact, of the 31 bullet points across their 18 recommendations, almost 90 percent were new suggestions. Almost all of the recommendations were aimed at the City departments' review and oversight of our work bringing more visitors to Dallas."
Leaders took issue with some of the characterizations of the audit, especially those involving the organizations effectiveness and the pay for its CEO. "The audit asserts that the performance metrics for Visit Dallas are vague in our contract with the city," said Finance Chair Arthur Hollingsworth. "The Finance Committee and the Visit Dallas Bard discusses and sets specific goals and metrics for the CEO each fiscal year. These goals and metrics are very specific with third-party documentation to demonstrate performance, all of which is provided to the city."
CEO Phillip Jones also responded to the instances where his businesses expenses exceeded those allowed by the group's general policies. Those handful of cases, he said, had already been reviewed by the group's board. They were found to be justifiable due to extenuating circumstances or, in one case, a clerical error.
Auditors criticized Jones' purchase of a $543 backpack with organization funds. "That was a purchase that occurred because an airline lost and damaged my bag," Jones said. The airline instructed him to purchase a replacement and submit his receipt for reimbursement. "I bought the backpack and turned in my receipts to our accounting department," Jones said. "There was an oversight and it was never submitted to the airline for reimbursement. As soon as it was brought to my attention I wrote a personal check to cover the cost. This was the only instance in which something like this ever occurred."
Members of the Dallas City Council have set a special committee meeting next month to go over the audit. "We look forward to working with the City to ensure that all identified issues in the audit are fully addressed and appreciate the opportunity to provide a fuller picture of what we do," said Board Chair Mark Woeffler.