Kim Williams no longer with USPSA

In an announcement that would have been easy to miss, USPSA very quietly announced yesterday that Kim Williams was longer employed by their organization. The attached screenshot shows exactly how much public information they released about her no longer serving as the Executive Director of USPSA.

If you recall, Kim was the executive director of USPSA who was at the center of the recent controversy involving improper accounting procedures. Two members of the USPSA Board of Directors at the time called for her immediate resignation, which failed. It would seem that with the change in the make-up of the USPSA BOD, the new USPSA President no longer has need of Kim’s services.

I won’t speculate on the reason behind Kim no longer being employed by USPSA, although the cryptic and terse nature of the message practically begs for it. It is my hope that USPSA as an organization made this decision in the best interests of furthering the growth and expansion of the practical shooting sports.

6 Comments

  1. It is pretty obvious where the money went. For that amount of money, I hope an investigation has been or is being done. The members deserve answers.

  2. This IS Ugly and I have a Gut feeling that it WILL get uglier.

    USPSA is a Non Profit, they are supposed to follow certain rules as dictated by the IRS.

    Why don’t we read the Minutes from the last USPSA BOD Meeting and read between the lines…

    You might get a glimpse of what transpired here!!

  3. There’s a good chance of behind the scenes legal action happening here.

    $144,000 of unaccounted for funds is bad news for any organization, and if there’s proof the Exec Director charged the card with unauthorized expenses she could be facing sustainable charges for embezzlement, and the attendant jail time.

    Among other reasons,that explains the terse notification. If she was terminated incident to a financial fraud case the BoD may not be authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.

    Don’t expect a fast official answer. Forensic accounting for fraud can take a long time, and the Exec Director may settle with USPSA/district attorney under confidential conditions. Time will tell.

    Note; a lesson from this is even gun industry businesses need internal systems of accounting control. Lots of times I see gun shops and small businesses where One Dude or One Dudette controls the books, pays the bills, etc with no oversight or audit. That’s asking for trouble, and if someone in the firm is racking up charges and hiding the statements, the damage could literally break a business.

    USPSA hopefully can survive a $144,000 fraud hit, but for many small businesses it would be a death sentence .

    Have an outside auditor or accountant review your organizations books periodically . Don’t just have One Person control the flow of money into and out of your business. While Sarbanes -Oxley type corporate internal control processes are probably overkill for the typical gun business, having two or more people supervising the transactions is a basic step to ensure this sort of problem doesn’t happen at YOUR firm.

    Off topic money lecture brought to you by GardoneVT.

  4. The “suspense file” matter was resolved and cleared over a year ago. The issue was that credit-card charges were staying in “suspense” when they didn’t need to be – if any item on a charge statement didn’t have a matching receipt, the entire statement was put in suspense (even if every other charge on that statement could be properly reconciled and coded).

    There was no “missing” $144,000… just $144k in “suspense” that didn’t need to be there. The Board – and the org’s CPA – put additional process-guidelines in place last year, and the matter was closed.

    1. What is the official explaination for the charges lacking a receipt?

      Five figure bills to a company charge card without receipts or an explaination isn’t kosher.

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