Tuesday, April 25, 2023

What Happened at the Greater Jackson Arts Council?

 A whistleblower report accused Greater Jackson Arts Council Executive Director Silbrina Wright of maxing out the credit cards, misspending grants, and bullying behavior as GJAC finances were drained.  Former Managing Director John Salem submitted the report to the Board of Directors on August 3, 2022, two days after Ms. Wright suspended him.  She fired him on August 19.   

 Mr. Salem worked at the Council since 1994.  He rose to Managing Director, second in the organization to only Executive Director, Silbrina Wright.  Ms. Wright became Executive Director in January 2021. He accused the organization of firing him after he reported Executive Director mismanaged over $500,000 in a lawsuit filed March 10 in Rankin County Circuit Court.Earlier post and copy of complaint.

The memo makes several damning allegations against Ms. Wright: 

* American Express Gold Card Account. The spending patterns on this account are disturbing and unsustainable. In June of this year alone, three payments (totalling $100,000) had to be issued to keep the account current and flexible for continued use. As of this writing, the balance is approximately $88,000. And a payment of approximately $58,000 was required on 8/1/2022 to keep the account in good standing. There is no discernable method of proper receipt management, explanation of charges, or rigorous monthly statement reconciliation.

Mr. Salem recommended freezing the account.  Unfortunately, retired Executive Director Janet Scott opened the account in the mid-90's.  The account had to stay in her name although "she is not personally responsible for any card activity."  He recommended opening a new account under the name of current management. 

* Community Bank/Surdna Foundation Thriving Cultures Project.  $400,00 was deposited into a new account at Community Bank for the project.  Mr. Salem reported "large amounts" were transferred from the project account to the general operating account for "other program spending, operations, and American Express payments (sounds familiar to Zoo followers).  Other checks were written to pay Ms. Wright's daughter who served as an intern.  Bank statements often were not properly reconciled.  


Mr. Salem said on the account was overdrawn on August 1, 2022.  He claims he was met with hostility  when he questioned the overdraft: 


My panic was met (via text and in-person) with gross belligerence and a vulgar verbal assault (“Get the fuck out of my face”). I was also accused of hostile behavior toward Silbrina, which is categorically untrue. Because a staff person under her charge (Xhana Thompson) was in the outer office, I followed Silbrina into her executive office and closed the door in the interest of privacy. She took immediate affront to this, accused me of being aggressive, and opened the door to join Xhana in the conference room. I calmly asked Xhana to give us some privacy. Silbrina ordered her to stay. I asked again. Xhana refused. A partial Voice Memo recording of the altercation is included here. My tone and demeanor reflected in this evidence was constant throughout the incident, from my encountering Silbrina in the Arts Center parking lot to following her out when she drove away. Any claim otherwise from Silbrina or Xhana in the future is an absolute lie. Silbrina can be heard on this recording indicating that she is on the phone with GJAC Board President Julian Miller during our altercation. I do not know whether this is true or not. But this claim, her charges of insubordination, and her text responses to me were clear threats to my job security.

The city of Jackson announced a $1.2 million grant from the Foundation in 2020.  Rest of article. 

* Community Bank Line of Credit Pursuit.  The report alleges Ms. Wright tried to obtain a line of credit at Community Bank for the Arts Council.  However, The Arts Council already nearly maxed out a line of credit at Trustmark but it was secured by a Trustmark CD. 

* CWP Consulting Scope of Work.  CWP Consulting managed to conduct the regular financial operations of the Arts Council and perform the audit.  In effect, CWP was auditing itself - a huge accounting no-no and a big red flag for potential fraud. 

* June 2022 Disneyworld "Excursion".  Mr. Salem said this excursion this appears to be the largest single expense (excluding capital improvements to the Arts Center) in GJAC’s history since our role as producer and organizing agent for Jubilee! JAM.  The trip was somehow connected with Jackson Public Schools but it was not clear whether JPS sanctioned the "excursion."  Mr. Salem recommended accounting for all expenses and participants in the trip.   He did not mention how much the trip cost. His Rankin County lawsuit states the trip cost over $110,000. 

* Arts Center Renovation Work.  Ms. Wright allegedly told Mr. Salme to prepare a payment for Peter Alvis, Sr. for renovation work at the Arts Center.  "A W-9 was provided but not an invoice for the $13,900 amount."  The report claims the Executive Director would upload an invoice into the accounting system.  Mr. Salem questioned the contractor's work: 

I don’t know how this contractor was discovered or selected. In my view, the professionalism of the work left something to be desired. Reneisha Price, Silbrina Wright’s Administrative Assistant who resigned abruptly last month, was put in the strange position of running supply errands (flooring, paint, etc.) for the contractor and witnessed one of the workers (under the influence of the drug Lean) sprawled shirtless on the floor of the Arts Center loading dock.

The former Managing Director recommending firing the contractor and obtaining a proper itemized invoice.  

Mr. Salem reported her management style deteriorated as time passed: 

For the first year, things were generally smooth. We had a good rapport and worked together on almost everything GJAC related. But something shifted at the end of last year. It began with a call on Christmas Eve rudely demanding that I edit our holiday message video because she was not featured in the footage. That was the beginning of a intermittently hostile work environment that has ebbed and flowed between tolerable and completely untenable.

Her management style is basically management by chaos. She became an information hoarder. I was not consulted on key decisions and sidelined from key financial matters. EXAMPLE: For our Arts Infusion funding proposals for Summer 2021 and Fall/Spring 2021-2022, I was a key participant in proposal writing, program and budget development, budget narrative presentation, and invoicing. For the Summer 2022 program, which includes the aforementioned Disney trip, I was blocked from the entire process.

More recent months have revealed Silbrina to manage not by team but by fiefdom. She hires and surrounds herself with college interns or students who just recently graduated. She shows extreme favorability to some in her orbit and hostility/abuse to others. Her ability to admit a mistake (even on the most trivial matter) is nonexistent. She is routinely unapproachable and dismissive and resistant to compromise. It is a toxic storm of ego, belligerence, narcissism, power/authority hunger, and recklessness.

 However, the Managing Director credited Ms. Wright with an increase in the GJAC's budget: 

The reasons for my delay in coming forward are complicated. Year to year, GJAC’s budget has nearly tripled by funding from the Jackson Public Schools District and the Surdna Foundation, and Silbrina Wright is largely, if not exclusively, responsible for those awards. She routinely put on display and declared her tight working relationships with JPSD administration officials, the Surdna Foundation principals, City of Jackson officials, even Congressman Bennie Thompson. She gave me constant assurances of other “big money” coming in, and because of our fast budget growth, I believed this to be true. In all honesty, there is also an element here pertaining to race. Silbrina Wright is the first African American director in GJAC’s 40+ year history. Her appointment was greeted with great enthusiasm and immediately opened funding relationship doors previously closed to the agency. I was kept outside the loop of most if not all discussions/meetings with powerful people in decision-making positions, all of them African American. On some level, I felt like my voice was unwelcome and that raising concerns or asking too many questions would send the wrong signals.

The report ends with a warning of what might happen if the Board acts on the report: 

In closing, I want to offer a cautious view. Should the decision be made to remove Silbrina Wright as Executive Director, it will be an incredibly contentious confrontation. Her degree of belligerence and defiance and self-righteousness is on a level I have never encountered before. The risk of her refusing to leave and going public with outrageous counterclaims against me and the board of directors is a near certainty. So the execution of that action, if decided upon, should be very carefully factored.

Mr. Salem sued GJAC and Ms. Wright for wrongful termination in Rankin County Circuit Court on March 10.  The defendants have not yet been served.  

GJAC's SOS registration is active.  However, its license to operate as a charity expired on February 15, 2023.  The organization's Facebook page shows it has been active recently.  

 

Note: In case Jackson deletes the press release, here it is. 

The City of Jackson announced today that they received a $1.2M award from the Surdna Foundation to work with the Community Aid & Development Corporation as part of a regranting and municipal partnership, to invest in artists from communities of color. The award will be distributed in equal parts over the course of three years.

This grant award will fund the Live. Impact. Create. Initiative, which is geared toward empowering people of color to use their artistry and voice to address social justice radically through the arts. The initiative will financially support fellows and offer training to develop leadership and social injustice resolution skills. Fellows will be tasked with curating projects which shed light on community needs and will partner with young creative people of color to cultivate unorthodox solutions to community problems. The project will launch in two phases. The first will be dedicated to gathering valuable community impact, followed by the selection of fellows and individual project implementation. 

The award is part of a three-year artist regranting initiative through Surdna’s Thriving Cultures program, which will support up to 260 projects by artists of color working with their communities around the country to imagine and practice racially just systems and structures. Through this award, regranting partners, such as the Community Aid & Development Corporation, will distribute Surdna’s funds to artists, artist collectives and small artist organizations and will provide direct, on-the-ground support and technical assistance.

“Art has been a means of influencing culture and speaking to social concerns for generations. And so, we’re happy for this partnership that allows us to continue a necessary conversation about how we confront issues of racial justice and inequity,” said Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba.

“As communities across our nation work together to survive COVID-19, artists are uniquely positioned to help us imagine and build a more just future in which we all can thrive,” said F. Javier Torres-Campos, Program Director of the Foundation’s Thriving Cultures program. “We are proud to partner with organizations that provide direct, on-the-ground support and technical assistance to artists of color. Our artist regranting cohort invests in the leaders and communities most impacted by injustice because they bring the necessary lived experience, strategies, and creativity to realize racially just societies.”

The City of Jackson joins a diverse cohort of 11 regranting partners, which are national and regional in focus, and include several learning clusters of organizations attempting to impact prevailing inequities in arts grantmaking in specific ways. Among the clusters are organizations focused on the U.S. South, local cross-sector partnerships between municipal governments and local arts nonprofits, and culturally specific intermediaries serving Latinx and Indigenous communities. The City of Jackson is a proud member of both the U.S. South learning cluster as well as the Cross-Sector Partnership learning cluster.


40 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess I have always just assumed this type of foolishness is going on in all of Jacksons business. This is no shock to me.

Anonymous said...

She will play the race card soon... count on it

Anonymous said...

The report is an interesting peek behind the curtain of how things really work in Jackson. Can't say I'm surprised about Jackson Public Schools admins throwing money around.

Race hustlers created a system whereby every facet of society is viewed through the lens of racism, and that system pays well for those willing to buy into it. The money has to come from somewhere, and public services get looted to pay the bill.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a bunch of kids. You tell on me I tell on you.

Anonymous said...

Did she also go to Paris?

Anonymous said...

Mr. Salem's first mistake was being white. His second mistake was being male.

Anonymous said...

@11:33 AM That's a great great analysis/summary of how things work in Jackson and Hinds County.

Anonymous said...

The state auditor is in order.

Anonymous said...

To what extent IF ANY is the IBC Foundation tangentially affect by this “mess”?

Anonymous said...

This story reminds me of when the Jackson mayor asked that no state oversight be attached to the federal monies being given to fix the water system.

Anonymous said...

Notice the grant received for artists is only for “artists of color”. Mississippi’s Universitirs have recently received federal money for scholarships for only people of color. This from looking at a University scholarship website.

Seems like this should be illegal. Use income levels instead of skin tones to choose recipients of federal money.

Anonymous said...

Surdna money to GJAC filtered through longtime Lumumba family connection in Georgia.

Anonymous said...

That Disney trip at $110,000 must have been a hum dinger!

Anonymous said...

Is the GJAC an arm of the city of Jackson?

Anonymous said...

Grift is an 'Art' not all are blessed with.

Wow said...

This is sick. What can even be done about this?

Excellent Judge of Character said...

I can’t imagine what they could be doing now to fill their days. Have they not been completely shut down yet? A criminal investigation has been launched by the State Auditor’s office. A simultaneous review is being conducted by the Secretary of State’s office, internet and phones have been disconnected, and their charity registration expired (for the second time) back in February. The board has bled out with mass resignations, assuming they’re the John Does 1-10 in the original complaint. At what point are they not ALLOWED to operate? This is insane!

Anonymous said...

Mr. Salem is a kind and honest man who well represented GJAC for many years. I'm so sorry he was put in this situation with this criminal. It will be interesting to see further developments of the extent of her relationship with the Lumumba clan.

Anonymous said...

Best thing I’ve read today!

“Race hustlers created a system whereby every facet of society is viewed through the lens of racism, and that system pays well for those willing to buy into it. The money has to come from somewhere, and public services get looted to pay the bill.”

Silbrina Wright is the consummate race hustler. And she’s going to take the young cracker-jack lawyer Julian Miller right down the tubes with her.

Anonymous said...

KF, if you need to archive something I'd start using archive.is or archive.today

Anonymous said...

There is a growing segment of society composed of professional and educated black people who have overcome whatever disadvantages they started with and they are thriving financially. And they cringe every time something like this happens because it sets their people back decades. I'm talking about successful and contributing members of our society. Of course all of them live in Madison or Clinton, but they roll their eyes just like white folks do when they read this. The hucksters, whether non-profit CEOs like this, or the elected ones like Lumumba, are just opportunists taking advantage of the uneducated and gullible citizens who can't afford to get out of Jackson. At some point, the black lawyers and doctors out in Madison are going to have a grow a pair and speak out.

Anonymous said...

Julian Miller was with some good law firms - Bradley, Butler Snow, Forman Watkins & Krutz - but he never seemed to last long at any of them. Wonder why? Now he's an adjunct at the MC School of Law and has a job with the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Anonymous said...

Lumumba and his people haven't made it a secret that he's the "chosen one" to make their dream of Black Nationalism a reality, and that Jackson is the place where they intend to do it.

Of course they need money, and taking that money from "the racist system" will only make the victory sweeter in their eyes.

I don't understand why we don't believe them when they tell us what they really stand for through their words and/or their actions. It's really just straight-up public corruption, cloaked in 1960s-era Black Nationalist idealism, and by any means necessary.

Anonymous said...

What's the latest on Jackson's "limited-edition signature Series Keith Haring fitness court"?

Touted to be operational by the end of 2021 in Wicker Wilson Park.


https://www.wapt.com/article/jackson-to-become-home-of-rare-keith-haring-fitness-court/35398926

"This is an example of Jackson's rising reputation as a radical city doing incredible things," Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said."

Anonymous said...

I'll just leave these here:
https://www.wlbt.com/story/12417049/former-charity-employee-in-court-on-embezzlement-charges/
https://shadwhite.com/state-auditor-investigating-over-100k-in-misspent-money-at-canton-municipal-utilities-2/

Anonymous said...

April 25, 2023 at 2:50 PM
As of June 2022 google maps it's still woods. I wouldn't expect that to change any time soon.

Anonymous said...

Great point on the Keith Haring fitness court! Where is it? AND WHERE IS THE MONEY? Jackson Heart Foundation gave a ton of money to that project. I bet they are trying to find out! But the arts council phones got cut off, so they are out of luck. This is crazy! And what about the Jackson Public Schools board? Do they pay attention to anything? That Disney trip is something else!

Anonymous said...

How did Ms Wright get the job? She was previously charged with embezzling from a Bingo Parlor in north Ms, ordered by State Auditors Office to repay money taken from Canton Utility and entered a felony diversion program in Madison County.

Kingfish said...

Insurance company paid out the CMU claim.

Anonymous said...

@Excellent Judge of Character has all the tea. They must be a private investigator. I think my wife is cheating. Hook me up with some evidence for court, lmao.

What residential garbage collection doing What untreated sewage leaks and overflows doing said...

"This is an example of Jackson's rising reputation as a radical city doing incredible things," Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said."

Excellent Judge of Character said...

Laugh away, 7:03……

Anonymous said...

Why isn't the JPS school board paying attention? Did some of them go on this Disney trip? I'm just asking because there are restrictions on Covid relief money. It's supposed to be closely monitored. Were they on the Harry Potter ride with their kids? Is that why none of them are talking? It's just a question.

Anonymous said...

When is his lawsuit going to be served?

Good gracious, it was filed March 10.

Anonymous said...

How in the world does a board president let an organization get this out of control? The legal community is talking about this. I’m hearing Julian Miller’s departure from Forman Watkins Krutz was messy. More get out than goodbye, if you know what I mean. Lawyers at the big firms here are not surprised by this at all. Why haven’t the other board members voted him out? How did he ever get elected? How many jobs does he have? Seems like he’s all over the place. One lawyer cracked at a bar tonight that if he called a Lyft he wouldn’t be surprised if Julian Miller turned up as the driver. I laughed so hard I bought the next round on that one.

Anonymous said...

Board president Julian Miller and Silbrina Wright are entangled enough that WhitePages.com has them at the same address in Canton, MS.

WISEOWL said...

Her role as the program director for the Bennie G. Thompson Delta Leadership Initiative at Tougaloo College’s Reuben V. Anderson Center allows her to reach more into the local community she loves in the Mississippi Delta. Silbrina is a seasoned fundraiser and leader across nonprofit, government, and private sectors, she studied business administration at Belhaven University. This says alot

MS said...

Corruption seems to be a part of Mississippi’s “leaders” and “government paid employees” for far too long. After 58 years of seeing blatant theft of taxpayer money, it was time to move to another state. Glad I did.

Kingfish said...

He can't on his own. Not with a municipality.

Anonymous said...

This is ugly and shameful. The terrible part is that most charities and nonprofits believe in their work and go about it ethically and with good intentions, and these disgusting people make the entire industry look bad. Going forward, it will be interesting to see who turns a blind eye and funds these crooks.


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