Key Music Center Aide Leaves Post After Error : Arts: The financial executive’s departure comes after a mistaken announcement that fund-raising goals had been met. The employee continues to receive his salary, although he is not at work, officials said.

Officials of the Los Angeles Music Center confirmed Monday that a key financial executive has left his post after an erroneous announcement earlier this year that the center had met its fund-raising goal.

The duties of Music Center Vice President James B. Black have been filled since Aug. 28 by an executive lent to the music and theater complex by Arco, said Music Center Chairman Ronald J. Arnault, who also is a top Arco corporate official.

Black remains a Music Center employee and receives his salary although he is not at work, officials said in an interview. Officials declined to give Black’s current salary but tax records show he earned $79,808 in 1989-90.

Arnault declined to say if Black would return or to discuss the reasons for his departure, saying that to do so would be “bad employment policy.” Officials said there was no evidence of misuse of funds.

“If we put employment reviews in the newspaper, how are we ever going to get anyone to work for a quasi-public institution like the Music Center?” he asked.

Efforts to reach Black for comment during the last six weeks have been unsuccessful. His wife, Janet, when asked if her husband was on leave, replied: “You could say that.” She declined to provide details and referred all questions to Arnault.

The Music Center, California’s largest performing arts center, announced in July that fund raising had “surpassed all expectations” with $17.6 million raised for fiscal 1990-91, a 15% increase over the previous year.

The announcement was particularly noteworthy because the declining general economy had forced many other nonprofit cultural groups to scale back fund-raising goals. Music Center executives, including President Esther Wachtell, had publicly worried that the goal would not be met.

Two months after the announcement, embarrassed Music Center officials released a statement saying there had been a mistake. Revised figures showed they raised $16.3 million, $1.3 million short of the goal. Officials borrowed $3 million from the Music Center Foundation to cover the fund-raising gap and other expenses.

Music Center officials also said revisions will be made in the way that fund-raising estimates are computed and that, in the future, no results will be released until the figures have been audited.

Officials said they hope to have a new financial control plan completed by Friday.

They also plan to announce how the center’s four resident companies--the Philharmonic, the Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum, the Music Center Opera Assn. and the Master Chorale--will be affected by a 16% spending cutback precipitated by the fund-raising problem.

Arnault, Wachtell and other key officials Monday strongly defended the overall financial soundness of the operations at the Music Center.

They said none of the resident companies are in danger of failing the way that the Los Angeles Theatre Center did this week, despite $27 million in assistance from Los Angeles.

“The Music Center is a very, very healthy place financially,” Arnault said. “It has problems and adjustments to make, but we have substantial resources . . . and by the end of this week we expect to have a very good, strong plan in place for what we’re going to do for the next year.

“In the process,” he added, “we’re looking at what needs to be adjusted in the long-range plan, because the fact of the matter is the economy has shifted downward, and we’re going to have to adjust downward until we see that it pops back up.”

Neither Arnault nor other Music Center executives would spell out who was responsible for the erroneous information in the July announcement. However, they indicated that accounting controls that could have alerted executives to the fund-raising shortage were not effective.

Arnault said a number of estimates were involved in reaching the final figure and, for the first time in the Music Center’s 27-year history, the estimates were wrong. No one stood to benefit financially from deliberately making the wrong estimates and the annual yearly audit later turned up no indications of wrongdoing, said Arnault and Thomas Rowland, partner in Deloitte & Touche, the Music Center accountants.

Rowland said extra steps were taken with this year’s audit in view of the mistake. Asked if accountants could positively rule out misdeeds, such as embezzlement, Rowland said there was “absolutely no indication” of that.

Arco employee James Adams, a financial systems expert, has moved to the Music Center at Arco’s expense to temporarily assume Black’s job, Arnault said. While refusing to discuss in detail Black’s status, Arnault did read a prepared statement that said Black was still a Music Center employee.

“He was asked by the auditors and the board finance committee to provide all the information he has regarding the origins of the 1991 financial deficit,” the statement said. “Mr. Black has been cooperative and, to the best of our knowledge, provided the information that was requested. He continues to be useful in the role.”

Black’s wife said she had been unaware of the statement but that it was accurate.