LITTLE ROCK — The former chief financial officer of the Arkansas Arts Center used his museum-issued credit card to make $8,506 in purchases - of items ranging from weed-trimmers to carpeting to electronic music files - that the museum staff has tentatively identified as unauthorized personal expenditures, according to records released Wednesday.
The records also show that Rocky Nickles, who was fired on Jan. 13, charged the museum for $3,938 in gasoline, even though a museum board member said Nickles did not have a museum-issued car and was not authorized to use his credit card to buy gas.
The museum staff also identified $27,665 in creditcard purchases since 2007 for which Nickles did not submit receipts, and $23,107 in purchases for which it was unclear whether the expenses were museum-related, the records show.
Bobby Tucker, chairman of the museum’s board of trustees, turned over copies of the records - which include hundreds of pages of receipts and credit-card statements - to the Little Rock Police Department on Monday. The museum released copies of the same records to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Wednesday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
Police said they expected the investigation to take at least a couple of weeks.
“We just got the stuff, the documentation,” said Lt. Steven McClanahan, the chief ofthe department’s financial crimes unit. “We’ll be looking at that, and we’ll make our determination from there.”
There was no answer Wednesday at the phone number listed for Nickles’ home near Greenbrier.
Bob Birch, vice president of the museum’s board of trustees, said the purchases were discovered during a review of the museums’ finances that began after Nickles was fired.
According to a memo released by the museum Wednesday, the firing came after Nickles was accused of “gross misconduct,” including withholding information about the museum’s finances from independent analysts.
The finances became of growing concern to board members as the museum borrowed money from its foundation to pay operating costs and cut its hours because of lower-than-expected attendance at the “World of the Pharaohs” exhibit, which ended July 5.
After Nickles was fired, the memo says, the analysts discovered other problems, including purchase orders that had not been entered into the museum accounting system, expenses that were assigned to “inappropriate and inaccurate cost centers.” The analysts also discovered the “questionable” credit-card purchases, including “food and fuel,” the memo says.
The memo was written by museum Director Nan Plummer to the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services, which administers unemployment benefits, on March 12. Plummer resigned from the museum a month later. Birch said her resignation was not related to the financial review.
Instead of buying gas with his museum credit card, Birch said Nickles was supposed to receive mileage reimbursement for museum-related trips. He said he didn’t know whether Nickles received such reimbursement in addition to charging the museum for gas.
For each credit-card purchase, Birch said, Nickles was required to submit a receipt and a written explanation.
During the review of financial records, museum staff labeled purchases as “personal” if they were not able to find the required documentation of what the expense was for and were unable to locate the items purchased, Birch said. It will be up to the police to determine whether the purchases were improper, he said.
He said the purchases should have been approved by Plummer. Asked what the procedure was, he said, “that’s what we’ve asked the police to investigate, is that process.”
The purchases include $165.29 for a dip bowl andserving tray from a gift shop in Hilton Head, S.C., and $58.40 for a child-size hat and T-shirt from the King Tutankhamun exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art.
Museum staff also flagged purchases of vinyl windows, scaffolding, paint, and wallboard, tools and weed-trimmers from a Lowe’s Home Improvement Store; groceries from Kroger and Wal-Mart; and $619.66 in carpet from The Carpet Center in Conway.
Other purchases include a $75.59 propane fryer from Gander Mountain in North Little Rock and more than $1,600 in food from Tommy’s Country Meats & Deli in North Little Rock. Also flagged: $4.97 in music downloads from Apple Computer’s iTunes music store.
In addition to the expenses identified as “personal,” Nickles spent $27,511.12 on meals from 2007 through January 2010, according to the records. Birch said the museum’s staff hasn’t determined whether all of the meals were business-related.
Nickles, who earned a salary of $89,932, has already reimbursed the museum for some charges, the records show. In March 2008, he wrote the center a check for $1,919.68. Birch said he didn’t have details on what charges the reimbursement covered.
On June 29 of this year, Nickles wrote two more checks. One, for $605.78, includes the notation “Tux & Accessories” and is for the same amount as a purchase in September 2009 from a Jos. A. Bank store.
The other check, for $466, says it is for “reimburse car repairs” and is in the same amount as a charge from a car-repair shop in July 2009.
Birch said the museum did not request the reimbursement. He said it was “not in our procedures” for Nickles to use the credit card for personal items and reimburse the museum later.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 07/22/2010