It was 2004 when legislators introduced the Festival and Fairs Committee Act, but 2012 was the first year that the committee functioned as the act requires, with one committee overseeing all Festival activities for the year, wrote Marvin Blyden, the committee’s 2012 chairman, in his first annual report.
Mr. Blyden called this year’s Festival activities an overall success, but he identified many challenges the committee faced and goals that it failed to meet.
“Great efforts were made to educate the returning and new sub[committee] chairs that operations concerning the handling of finances by this committee were going to be different,” but some chairs continued to “exhibit bad fiscal practices,” he wrote.
Some subcommittees, for example, did not present any revenue streams when they presented their budgets, Mr. Blyden added. The report also said very few committee chairs used the purchase order books they were issued or got estimates for their purchases from vendors in advance.
“All chairs were instructed to use the [purchase orders] or their invoices would not be honoured, but they still have blatantly disregarded this instruction,” Mr. Blyden’s report stated. “It is evident that these chairs are accustomed to disregarding their budgets.”
See the Nov. 29, 2012 edition for full coverage.
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