BY Megan AShley fink

The Natchez Democrat

NATCHEZ — The Natchez Convention Promotion Commission held a special meeting Friday in which the commission released findings of its ongoing investigation into the alleged wrongdoings of Natchez’s tourism director.

Convention and Visitors Bureau Director Kevin Kirby has been under investigation since January, commission chair David Gammill said Friday, and the investigation into the financial affects of Kirby’s actions is ongoing.

Commission attorney Christina Daugherty said the results of the investigation might be turned over to the state ethics commission when the commission’s internal audit is completed.

The commission met with the mayor, the board of aldermen and legal counsel in a two-and-a-half hour executive session Feb. 22.

The commission’s Feb. 22 statement to the aldermen, which they made public at Friday’s meeting, details the commission’s concerns about Kirby’s management of staff at the CVB, alleged misrepresentation of finances to commissioners, and spending tax money and entering into contracts without approval of the commission.

Kirby did not return requests for comment Friday.

The report was made public in order to make more detailed information about Kirby’s performance clear to the public, Gammill said.

“There seems to be plenty of partial information available, and we want to make sure we’re being as transparent as possible to provide information people are asking for,” Gammill said.

Kirby had been counseled several times about spending, acquiring prior approval for certain expenses, and office management, Gammill said.

The commission’s report alleges that Kirby moved Carol Ann Riley, a graphic designer who had been doing contractual work for the CVB, into an office at the visitor center and offered her a $60,000 job as the CVB’s director of marketing.

This happened in January of 2016, the report said, which was during the city’s hiring freeze.

Riley’s tax paperwork shows she was paid $100,000 for a period in which Kirby told commissioners she was paid only $2,500, the report alleges.

Commissioners allege Kirby dealt with other staff harshly and reprimanded them for answering commissioner’s questions and requests for information.

“Staff reports that Kirby regularly calls the staff to the conference room and screams at them,” the report states. “Staff says that they have learned to let him pitch his fits and then they quietly return to their offices.”

The report also alleges Kirby would not answer knocks on his office door nor visitors’ requests for information.

Gammill said Kirby had spent taxpayer money in a manner that did not conform to the commissioner’s approved budget in several circumstances.

This included an allegedly unapproved attachment to the commission’s first contract with The Goss Agency, a North Carolina marketing agency.

The attachment added a clause to the contract that allowed the final expenses to be in a range of “plus or minus 10 percent” the contract amount of $90,000.

The commission’s expenses related to that contract have exceeded the $90,000 the commission understood would be committed, Gammill said.

The commission has also found an unexplained, voided Goss contract that was never executed.

The contract was written on Dec. 11, 2015 and voided sometime before the commission first learned of it on Jan. 14.

The total of unauthorized expenditures, Gammill said, has not been calculated.

“We’re still looking at details,” Gammill said. “If you include the voided contract, you’d be talking hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Gammill said some of Kirby’s expenses for travel and entertainment were questionable, including overspending on tours given to visiting magazine writers and the purchase of a 2013 Lincoln MKX, which bears tax-exempt license plates.

The commission’s report states Kirby presented the monthly car payments as part of the “equipment rental” budget.

Daugherty said Kirby offered an insufficient explanation when confronted with the car.

“We asked how the car was purchased,” Daugherty said. “He said he had been authorized. He was not specific as to who gave him that authorization.”

Gammill said if the aldermen had directly authorized the car’s purchase, it would have been paid for through a city account instead of a CVB account.