You don't have to read the report to know there is a problem, just put it on a scale.

This does not include the review of expenditures made by Marshall Festivals, Inc., which also receives tax money and which the city is also now examining.

A few months ago, The Marshall News Messenger reviewed CVD expenditures for about seven months in 2001 and found numerous problems that would have been obvious even to those who were not accountants or even business persons.

We suppose if the problems had been confined to those few months five years ago then this might have been a “non-story” and we all could have been satisfied that, at most, no more than a few thousand dollars had been spent for purposes other than tourism.

This report shows, though, that there have been many thousands of dollars spent over the last five years with no invoices or receipts to back up the expenditures.

The report shows that some of those invoices are being sought, but that others will never be available. We must assume that credit card receipts that are several years old will never be found, meaning that we will never know the details on those expenditures.

There are also numerous – though relatively small – amounts of cash given to pay for expenses for trips. Those expenditures are also not backed up with receipts and we assume those will also never be available.