NEW ORLEANS — A new board at the city's public library support foundation ordered forensic audits this summer after WWL-TV discovered that the two previous foundation presidents had directed at least $863,000 in library donations to the jazz orchestra that pays both of their salaries.
Now, after months of reviews by accountants and attorneys, it's been determined that the New Orleans Public Library Foundation paid a total of $1.03 million to the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra between 2012 and 2014, while Grammy-winning trumpeter Irvin Mayfield and his business partner Ronald Markham were on the library foundation board and also each making at least $100,000 a year running the NOJO.
Bob Brown, the former managing director of the New Orleans Business Council, took over as chairman of the Library Foundation when Mayfield stepped down in April. That was while WWL-TV was questioning Mayfield about the payments to his orchestra. After the station aired a series of stories in early May, Mayor Mitch Landrieu called for changes at the foundation and Markham resigned, leaving Brown to set up almost an entirely new board.
Shortly after WWL-TV's initial reports, the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra's nonprofit board, headed by Audubon Institute CEO Ron Forman, also agreed to pay back the money it got from the Library Foundation.
Forman said his board would work swiftly to raise the money it had already used to build the jazz market and pay it back, but that has been delayed as auditors tried to resolve discrepancies in the Library Foundation's financial reports and sought updated records for 2014.
Brown said he wasn't ready to say that the $1.03 million figure is the total amount owed back to the Library Foundation, in part because he said the consultants are still trying to figure out if any of it was legitimately used to provide library services.
"Because when that figure is out there, it becomes a figure that nobody can walk away from," Brown said.
Brown did acknowledge something that WWL-TV previously reported based only on anonymous sources: a criminal investigation.
"The foundation was subpoenaed prior to this board's installation and did provide documents," he said.
Brown acknowledges he is friends with Mayfield and Markham, and he is careful not to "disparage" his predecessors. But he says he must also be honest about the sorry state they left him as he tries to convince library donors that he and the rest of the new board are cleaning things up and once again worthy of their financial support.
"I'm not afraid to say that I have had a number of inquiries from concerned donors about this matter," Brown said. "I have tried to answer each inquiry personally and to give as best I can an explanation that … I hope provides a reassurance that this board is doing its very best to be true to the donors and their wishes."
He said the Library Foundation's fund balance has plummeted from $3.5 million to around $2 million, a challenge as the new board tries to set spending for the coming year.
"It is no secret that fundraising is a bigger challenge now than it might have been under different circumstances and we have to put forth a responsible budget," he said.
They hired auditors Bruno & Tervalon and ethics attorney Gray Sexton to review the foundation's finances and procedures. Sexton's review made 13 recommendations on how to change the foundation's management, which lacked proper board minutes and record-keeping, Brown said.
Those deficiencies appeared to have played a role in some of the issues identified by the WWL-TV investigation, including uncertainty from Mayfield and Markham's fellow former board members about whether they knowingly bestowed Mayfield and Markham with special financial powers at 2012 meetings.
Former board members Gerald Duhon Jr. and Dan Forman, the son of the NOJO board chairman, couldn't recall agreeing to help finance the NOJO's $10 million New Orleans Jazz Market building that opened earlier this year in Central City.
Mayfield has never agreed to respond to requests for comment about the payments, but Markham defended them in an interview in May. He said he and Mayfield properly disclosed their involvement in the NOJO and said library donations were properly used to build the jazz market because it would offer some library-like services, such as books, touch-screen computers, free wi-fi and jazz records from the public library's collection.