February 6, 2002

Dear Neal:

     Per your request, I have reviewed the bank statements and the 
checks for the period from January 1, 1999 through December 31, 2000.  I noted a number of problems of judgment and mismanagement; however, in my review of the information I have not detected any fraud or misappropriation of NCCA assets.

    My concerns are in two categories.  The first set of concerns deals 
with a lack of necessary internal controls.  During Jeff Jones' administration the membership did not receive appropriate financial statements from the officers including proper balance sheets and income statements for the periods in question.  In addition, the NCCA did not promptly reconcile the bank statements, allowing the NCCA not to be able to catch any mistakes made by the bank or by the officers of the organization.  Another concern I have is that checks were written out-of-sequence, indicating a lack of control over who had possession of the checks.  Finally, there did not seem to be any oversight from another individual concerning the checks that were written on the account, especially to officers.

    While I am concerned about the internal controls, I was more 
concerned with how we spent what money we had.  When I was president of the organization in the early 1980's we had very little expendable money, and we treasured every dollar that we had.  I am concerned that the size of the expenditures was not commensurate with the benefit to the membership.  My main concerns deal with the expenditures for office supplies and software.  The NCCA is very volunteer-dependent, and my feeling is that we have enough computer capabilities that we should not be spending money on software packages of office supplies. More appropriate expenditures would be supporting scholastic chess or publishing the Gambit on a consistent basis.  Other concerns I have deal with the amount of money spent on sending Matt Hoekstra to the Denker Tournament and the money spent on the Invitational.  These items benefit a very small percentage of our membership, and I think the large amounts spent are not in the best interest of the organization.  Finally, I was concerned with the checks written to Jeff Jones without appropriate backup.  These reimbursements should have been approved by 
another officer with appropriate documentation.  Unfortunately, there 
is no audit trail for the expenditures, which we truly need as a membership organization.

    In summary, I believe that the administration could have and should 
have used better judgment and internal control.  I think a substantial 
amount of money was thrown away that did not need to be.  However, my gut feeling is that there has not been any fraud committed.

    It should be pointed out that my review was limited in scope and in 
no way should be relied on as absolute proof that fraud did not occur.

    I have also read Ken Baxter's comments and completely concur with 
his assessment.  My analysis above was arrived at independently but 
corroborates Ken's analysis.

    I would hope that the NCCA would learn from these past mistakes and 
try to move forward in a positive manner benefiting the members of our 
organization.  I sincerely hope tat we can put internal controls in 
place that would prohibit this from happening again.

    Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to review this 
information.

Sincerely yours,

Robert N. Singletary, CPA
Past President of the NCCA