This story was originally published by Fresnoland.
It happened during an urgently scheduled Friday noon meeting between the Fresno Arts Council and Fresno City Manager Georgeanne White.
Lilia Gonzales Chávez, the executive director of the Arts Council, told White herself that at least $1.5 million had been embezzled by a now-former Arts Council employee.
All of the missing $1.5 million were Measure P funds, Chávez told White during that Feb. 6 meeting.
“It’s really disappointing, you know?” White told Fresnoland in an interview. “There’s probably not a day or two that go by that I say something like, ‘You can’t make this up.’”
White said she learned in that Friday meeting that Chávez had, at that point, only made a report to the FBI about $1.5 million of embezzled funds, and hadn’t received a response yet.
“I said you need to report this, and she (Chávez) said that she had contacted the FBI, but had not heard back,” White told Fresnoland. “I said we need to contact Fresno PD — I think they can move faster.”
That’s when White got a detective from the Fresno Police Department’s financial crimes unit on the phone, who took a full police report from Chávez later that Friday afternoon in-person, White told Fresnoland.
At a Monday night community meeting — just one business day after the Fresno Police Department opened its investigation — White spoke with certainty to a room of aggrieved Fresno artists and Measure P grant recipients when she said the embezzled funds from the Arts Council were all public dollars.
White’s confidence was based on what Chávez reported to her late last week, before also reporting it to the Fresno Police Department, which is jointly investigating the matter alongside the FBI.
In an interview with Fresnoland, White explained a timeline of events that began with the Fresno Arts Council missing a key Sept. 30 reporting deadline to the city.
Yet, despite failing to file required financial reports, the Arts Council still requested funds for the third round of Measure P grants in October, which are supposed to be distributed until the fall of 2026. City officials never turned those funds over to the organization — a total of $6.6 million.
“I can’t speak to their motivation for requesting the funding,” White said of the Arts Council. “All I can speak to is telling the staff we’re not giving them the funding until they have accounted for and provided the documentation to confirm that the previous funding was spent consistent with the agreement.”
Chávez picked up a phone call from Fresnoland on Wednesday, but she said she is not able to answer any questions from local news media. On Friday night, after reporting the missing $1.5 million to the Fresno Police Department, Chávez sent out a news release to local media that said the Arts Council was “the victim of unauthorized financial transactions.”
Fresnoland reviewed the last decade of the Fresno Arts Council’s most recent tax filings, which were filed for fiscal years 2014 through 2023. The most money in a single year that the Fresno Arts Council handled in that decade was $2.48 million.
In November 2023, the Fresno Arts Council received $9.7 million in Measure P tax revenue from the City of Fresno — nearly 10 times the nonprofit’s average annual revenue of $1 million over the prior decade.
That multi-million dollar installment of Measure P funds was for the first round of grants for local arts organizations. In October 2024, the Fresno Arts Council received another $5.7 million in Measure P funds, this time for the second round of Measure P grants for arts organizations.
White told Fresnoland that it’s her understanding the Arts Council paid out all of the first round of Measure P grants. She also told Fresnoland that Chávez sent further information to the city, showing that about $1.5 million of second round Measure P grants have not been disbursed yet.
“I don’t know if that $1,597,434 — is it a coincidence that it’s close to the $1.5 million that was allegedly taken?” White told Fresnoland. “All I have is a spreadsheet provided by the Arts Council. I don’t have an independent review and that has got to happen.”
White said the Fresno Police Department and the FBI jointly investigating the missing money should be able to answer that question.
If it did come out of the second round of Measure P funds, it could mean the reported embezzling of $1.5 million would have allegedly taken place after October 2024.
A three-month late ‘data dump’ with insufficient information
Back in September, a coalition of local artists and advocates lambasted the Fresno Arts Council and a private city subcommittee — both working together to create recommendations for Measure P grant awards. They questioned whether that subcommittee should be meeting in private.
Almost simultaneously, city officials were dealing with their own lack of transparency from the Arts Council as well.
After the Fresno Arts Council failed to meet a Sept. 30 reporting deadline, and was not given round three Measure P funding — which are supposed to be allocated to local arts organizations this fall — Chávez gave city officials a report on Nov. 13.
“It was completely insufficient,” White told Fresnoland. “It didn’t contain any of the detailed financial reporting information that was due.”
White said city staff sent a Nov. 21 letter to Chávez requesting the proper financial reporting.
It wasn’t until Jan. 9, White said, when the Arts Council finally handed over more information to city officials.
But as she said at the Monday evening community meeting, it was “a data dump.” White clarified to Fresnoland that city staff received that information in January, not the beginning of December.
White also clarified that it took three weeks for city staff to go through what the Arts Council turned over to the city in January.
“They’re required to submit copies of bank statements, check ledgers, and not all of that was provided,” White said. “They provided a list of payments, but it didn’t say who the payments were made to.”
On Friday, Jan. 30, city staff sent a new letter to the Arts Council requesting sufficient information.
White told Fresnoland that the very next Monday, on Feb. 1, Chávez sent an email to city staff asking for a copy of what her own staff had sent over on Jan. 9.
While the City of Fresno’s Tuesday public statement said a Fresno Arts Council board member contacted the city about the missing money, White told Fresnoland that Chávez had already reached out earlier that same day to set up a meeting with her as soon as possible.
White and Chávez met the very next day, Friday, Feb. 6 — where Chávez, for the first time, reported to the city that $1.5 million in Measure P funds were missing, before White connected her with the Fresno Police Department to make a formal report.
“I don’t know how much information they knew, and when,” White said. “All I know is what they told me. Whether or not that’s accurate, I don’t know. They said that they had uncovered this, and they were embarrassed about it.”
‘I don’t know yet about community outreach’
Fresno’s highest-ranking city officials emerged from a rare Tuesday special closed session with a written public statement, which included a sharp criticism of the Fresno Arts Council.
“The Mayor and members of the City Council are appalled by the lack of safeguards put in place by the Fresno Arts Council, which ultimately allowed this embezzlement to occur,” city officials said in the statement.
The statement made clear that the city will take over administering of Measure P grant money. White said the specifics of how that works aren’t fully hashed out yet.
However, one thing is certain to White: She said the city needs to take control of administering Measure P funds for arts organizations.
“I don’t feel like I can trust another agency to move forward right now,” White told Fresnoland. “I’m very comfortable knowing what internal controls that we have in place with the city, not that we’re perfect, but we have done a lot of work in the finance department over the last three years, updating all of our policies and procedures and internal controls.”
She also said she understands community frustrations about transparency, and said the city will ensure the third round of Measure P’s grantmaking process will be transparent.
Fresnoland asked her what role community engagement and feedback will play in how the City of Fresno administers Measure P funds. White said she doesn’t have specifics on that just yet.
“I don’t know yet about community outreach,” White told Fresnoland, “but I do know that the city is very well-versed and used to complying with the Brown Act, and posting meeting agendas and having minutes.”
The City of Fresno is actually in the middle of an active lawsuit, which alleges city leaders violated California’s Brown Act with its budget process for five consecutive years.
The lawsuit, filed by the ACLU of Northern California and the First Amendment Coalition, was triggered by an August 2023 Fresnoland investigation into the City of Fresno’s budget process.
If you are a Measure P recipient who has not received the entirety of your Measure P grant, you can contact the City of Fresno directly at (559) 621–2999. You can also send an email to ExpandedArts@fresno.gov along with the Measure P grant agreement you entered into with the Fresno Arts Council, as well as any related documentation.
