BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

Second of a Four-Part Series

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY SEPT. 27, 2017) — The avalanche of outrage over the Berkshire Museum‘s (BM) proposed sale  of artwork — significant works by important artists, including two large, “marquee” canvasses by Norman Rockwell — descended so swiftly upon the hapless director and his board that they took the unusual step of trying to dig out of a mud slide using plastic forks. On its website recently, the organization posted a self-serving misdirection titled “A Summary of the Berkshire Museum’s Finances.”

The document tells you all (though not everything) you need to know to fathom the crass, heartless stupidity of Van Shields, the BM’s executive mad bomber; “Buzz” McGraw, Shields’ gun moll as board president; and the remainder of the wagon circlers euphemistically known as the BM’s Bored of Untrustees, a “Who’s Who” of local La-De-Das that suck down booze at HON and other “hip, vibrant” watering holes, and suck Richard to, for, and of anyone who can further feather their filthy nests. In an upcoming column, THE PLANET shall identify each of these cheap Suits.

The “Summary” begins with the understatement of the local millennium: “There have ben a lot of questions about the Museum’s finances in recent week.”

Stop the presses right there. In THE PLANET‘s years as a daily newspaper guy, we used to call this a “N.S.” statement. The abbreviation stands for “no spit,” only the word isn’t spit. You get the defecated idea.

The “Statement” then turns pathetic: “We are sharing some facts and details with you that we hope will help you understand the circumstances that led to the Board taking bold action and moving forward with the New Vision.” Ah, where to start, loved ones? How about the sugar-coating, whereby these dolts refer to the Rape of the City — and why isn’t  it that, “it” being the destruction of the county seat’s cultural gem? —  as “bold action” in service to “the New Vision?”

No, dipspits, “bold action” would have been to fire Shields’ ass sometime into his losing streak of running the facility into the ground with millions of debt.

The documents next presents text and  graphics trying unsuccessfully to substitute pathos for outright mismanagement. The big tipoff the BM isn’t dealing straight comes in the text, where the document gets into word-eating non-sequiturs designed to throw you off the scent. The document spends paragraphs defining needless terms such as “Operating Revenue,” “Operating Expenses,” “Non-operating revenue,” “Non-operating expenses,” “Depreciation,” “Net Assets,” and “Structural (Operating) Deficit.” At first, the readers wanders through the forest, bewildered. Enlightenment comes near the end, when it becomes clear why the BM chose to define these arcane terms. It did so to try to pull a fast one, the way a Three-Card Monty dealer moves the cards around.

The smoking gun is how the documents buries “operating and non-operating revenue and expenses.” THE PLANET‘s turn as The Old Professor came in handy. On a multiple choice test, all things being equal, the best place to put the correct answer in a series of five or more choices is in the middle. That’s where the BM puts the bull about needing to distinguish between the operational difference between two sets of revenue. In light of where the document then goes, anyone with the least amount of sophistication in reading financial statements knows this is equivalent to the Monty dealer removing what they call the “mark cark,” the one he makes disappear so the sucker can’t select it.

The reason for the deception comes at the end, with this tell-tale paragraph: “Another finance-related document that is available online are the museum’s IRS form 990s, but the 990s do not tell the entire story. 990s do not differentiate between operating and non-operating revenue and expenses. Such details are key for anyone who is trying to analyze the museum’s … financial position and operating results.”

Hah!

In this smoldering paragraph, the document admits that the IRS does not distinguish between “operating and non-operating revenue and expenses.” It doesn’t give the reason, which is that when analyzing the financial position of the BM or any other not-for-profit, this distinction should not be made. Simply put, when determining the financial health of the institution, there is income and outflow. Period. The Feds say so. Most every reputable accountant will say so. The last sentence to the above-quoted paragraph should read, if truth be of concern here, “Such details are key for the Shields and the Trustees to try to hide or at least minimize the fact that over the previous decade, they’ve run up $25,812,436 in expenses and collected only $13,933,144 of income. For all you math geniuses, that has produced a deficit of nearly $12 million.” You try running your small business or household like that. See if you stay alive for ten years.

Great stewardship, eh?

Fact is, Shields, McGraw, the Trustees, Trasha Fataway-Boobier, MASS MoCA director Joe Thompson, Jimmy Ruberto, and anyone else who supports setting the insane precedent of selling off entrusted art have let go a wet fart. They tried to sneak it out, deadly-but-silent. However, it ran off the edges, brown, liquid, and down the cheeks. When the smell got bad enough, the BM lost its head and heart. That’s how and why one produces a financial statement so deceiving. Don’t fall for it.

Tomorrow in Part 3, THE PLANET gives you inside baseball about the politics of the BM’s decision. It’s laughable but it ain’t pretty, and it involves some familiar names.

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“Smiles show once a while but much farther apart, and I take a good look at the the time that it took to find one.” — Mick Valenti, “I Know Everyone.”

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

The Usual Disclaimer.