Countywide : Official Says Fair Is Resolving Problems

Ventura County Fair officials said Friday that they have already corrected most of the improper bookkeeping practices cited in an audit released Thursday by the state Division of Fairs and Expositions.

“There’s a lot of things in there that have already been corrected, in my opinion,” Earl McPhail, a member of the fair’s board of directors, said Friday at a meeting of the board’s Finance Committee. “We’re probably well over three-quarters of the way” toward complying with the auditors’ recommendations, he said.

The audit cited 68 instances of inadequate or inaccurate bookkeeping procedures, including the unauthorized transfer of $377,129 in proceeds from satellite horse-race betting to the fair’s operating budget in 1988 and 1989.

However, fair Treasurer L. A. (Tim) Miskel said fair officials got permission to make the transfers, after the fact, from the Division of Fairs and Expositions’ horse-racing consultant.

Fair General Manager Michael Paluszak said the board of directors will respond to the audit within 30 days by providing the state with a list of the corrective steps already taken and a plan for correcting remaining problems.