[Board] Incompetence, leading to problems with our nonprofit tax filing for 2022

[Steve Conklin]

Chase, Max, and Fritz,

I am the CFO of the California nonprofit Open Research Institute (ORI). We
engaged  Erik Hegstad from Dark Horse for both our 2021 and 2022 tax
filings.

We're happy to set up a call next week, to include me and the CEO of ORI,
in order to talk about this.

We have had multiple problems with Erik, with the end result that our 2022
filing was filed this month after an extension, and contains errors. I did
sign the forms, and have responsibility for that, but at the time we were
hours away from the deadline.

I'll leave the details and specific dates out of this email, but there is
an email trail backing this up.

The issues we've had go back more than six months. We reached out to Erik
several times to prepare our 990 and he was unresponsive. I looked at
preparing the 990EZ myself for the org, but when I looked at the 2021 form,
I wasn't able to figure out where Erik had gotten our starting and ending
balances from - he had access to our Quickbooks Online in order to prepare
that 2021 990.

I engaged with Erik again, and he was still mostly unresponsive. I filed
for an extension, and we continued to try to engage with Erik to review
2021 and prepare 2022. Finally, days before the Nov 15th deadline and after
we said we'd take our business elsewhere, Erik responded and said he'd have
it done in time. Then, he was unresponsive until the deadline arrived. With
hours to spare, the form was done and I signed it. I don't know whether it
was filed.

In reviewing the 990 that was just filed, we found errors in the
description of the programs we administer. It was a cut and paste from last
year, and is not accurate. In addition, I still have doubts about the
accuracy of the amounts which were entered based on access to our
Quickbooks Online accounting information.

At this point, I think that the only conscientious path forward for ORI is
for us to perform an audit including the last two years of returns, and see
where that leads us.

Is Dark Horse willing to provide us with a different accountant at no cost
to make this right? We would expect the work to include:

   - A complete review of our books and filings for 2021 and 2022,
   including specific questions we have about some items in that filing, as
   well as any other errors that are discovered.
   - Filing amended forms for those years
   - A written report of the findings and actions
   - Payment of any penalties any interest resulting from errors in past
   years

If Dark Horse is not willing to provide this service, we will hire another
recommended nonprofit accounting firm, and then act upon the results of
that.

In any case, we have an outstanding invoice for the services for the 2022
form 990, But given the incompetence of the work performed, we ask that you
cancel that invoice with a credit note.

Steve Conklin
CFO, Open Research Institute
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