Mr. Richard C. Carlson

Richard C. CarlsonActing Executive Director, Illinois Arts Council

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Richard Carlson is currently Senior Accountant with the League of Chicago Theatres, an alliance of theaters that promotes, supports, and advocates for Chicago's theater industry.Mr. Carlson worked at the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, for over twenty years as its Chief Fiscal Officer, and served as Acting Executive Director for two years.Mr. Carlson has taught management accounting at Columbia College of Chicago in the Arts and Media Management program, where he has also been a guest lecturer on public policy and the arts.

Richard C. Carlson Acting Executive Director 100 West Randolph St., Ste. 10-500 Chiacago, IL 60601 tel: 312.814.6750 fax: 312.814.1471

Former Illinois Arts Council executive director Richard Carlson is the new head of finance at the League of Chicago Theatres, still running under acting executive director Lyle Allen.

Welcome: Libby Lai-Bun Chiu, One State conference co-chair; Richard Carlson, Illinois Arts Council

"It's not like we have avoided looking at problems," said Richard Carlson, deputy director of the Illinois Arts Council."We have been attentive, but not on a systematic basis, which is what the auditor is really demanding of us."The council did do "mathematical checks" to make sure the entire grant amount was spent, and if it was not, that the grantee returned the leftover money to the arts council, Carlson said. "They were not audits in the sense of sending out a CPA," he said.After a 1997 state audit noted the lack of grant compliance checks, the arts council made an effort to address the problem. "We instituted a program in 1998 or 1999 and it subsequently fell apart on us," Carlson said."We just didn't have sufficient personnel to dedicate the time to it."However, Carlson said that in July 2001 the council assigned one employee to review all grant close-out reports to make sure all funds are accounted for, and to do a closer review of one of every 10 grants to check that the money was spent for its intended purpose. The Illinois auditor general also released reports citing problems at the Illinois Department of Revenue and the Illinois State Board of Elections. At the elections board, cash the agency received for various fees and materials was placed into an employee's personal checking account. The employee then wrote a check to the state treasury for those amounts, which totaled $2,300 for the two years ending June 30, 2001. The elections board was cited for weak control over its cash and unsound business practices, and the board agreed to convert its cash receipts into money orders payable to the state in the future. In the Department of Revenue audit, Holland found that the agency "had not adequately planned for all aspects of recovery in the event a disaster would render their computer operations inoperable."The agency has a disaster contingency plan, but auditors said it is not comprehensive enough and needs to be tested further.

Richard Carlson, executive director of the Illinois Arts Council, said there has been a long-standing relationship with group in Southern Illinois.He had little trouble recollecting numerous arts programs in Carbondale and other southern regions of the state.