Another plus for background checks
There’s much to leave you gobsmacked in the news about the bookkeeper accused of defrauding the Archdiocese of New York to the tune of $1 million. She had done it twice before! She was still on probation from the last arrest when she was hired by the archdiocese to work in accounts payable! She spent it on designer dolls! From Sharon Otterman and Russ Buettner’s story in the New York Times:
When Ms. Collins was hired by the archdiocese in June 2003, it did not perform criminal background checks on prospective employees, as it does now, Mr. Zwilling said. So church officials were unaware until recently that she had been convicted of grand larceny in one case and had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in another.
Those criminal background checks pay off in more than one area, apparently.
[Archdiocesan spokesperson Joseph] Zwilling said the scheme diverted money “designated for the purpose of helping to provide Catholic education.” The archdiocese has been closing churches and schools for lack of money, and asking for more than $15 million in an annual charity appeal.
“We are continually reviewing how money is handled, our financial controls,” Mr. Zwilling said, “because we want to be good stewards of the money entrusted to us.”
That is the part that lingers, at least for me, when I get past the sensationalistic, sad details of the crime. I’ve trusted the archdiocese with my donations — more so since Cardinal-designate Dolan started releasing an annual account of how those donations are used. And, of course, like any other Catholic, I depend on services those funds support. This revelation has to give a prospective donor pause. Imagine the possibilities for promoting next year’s Stewardship Appeal: “Give! We are no longer employing convicted embezzlers in our business office.”
Honestly, the official statement from Joseph Zwilling doesn’t do a whole lot better. No “We deeply regret…” or anything like it, and it ends, “Sadly, there will always be individuals who seek to exploit and circumvent whatever system is established, but we will remain vigilant in our oversight.” Yes, fraudsters we will always have with us — but while we can’t prepare for every thief that comes in the night, maybe vigilance requires doing a better job of not hiring those who’ve already got a rap sheet?
They hauled away her dolls and bears and her clothes from Barney’s and Brooks Bros. Maybe the archdiocese can have a sale and get some of the money back.
I wonder if she ever confessed to the thefts, and her confessor wished he could stop it but was bound by the seal of confession to let her keep going.
Catholics give the least amount to their church of any religious group. I wonder how many are going to give even less now that they see how it is spent: lawyers for pedophiles, fighting gay marriage in other dioceses, Madame Alexander’s tacky dolls, etc.
Lots of cheating going on. The article about Claremont McKenna was interesting, too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/education/claremont-mckenna-college-says-it-exaggerated-sat-figures.html?scp=2&sq=sat&st=cse
Gerelyn,
You said that “Catholics give the least amount to their church of any religious group”. And it’s a documented fact that liberals give less to charity than conservatives. “Commonweal Catholics” are Catholic and liberal. Does that mean that they’re the cheapest of the cheapskates?
Just a joke!
Until the church actually employs competent administrators and educated professionals, they will continue to stumble about under the presumption that ordination brings all the preternatural gifts and empowers priests, monsignors, bishops and archbishops to just merrily sail along, impervious to advice, financial safeguards and warnings. A simple in-house audit would expose all the dangers of allowing a book-keeper the authority and opportunity to record, pay and deposit transactions. Auditing 1A has the answers and New York is certainly not a remote rural backwater with no financial expertise available. And of course, all they had to do was a cursory background check – something they would normally do before hiring a housekeeper!
I apologize for my post above.
I’ve trusted the archdiocese with my donations — more so since Cardinal-designate Dolan started releasing an annual account of how those donations are used.
The parish is also supposed to release an annual account of the parish budget, and the finance committee has to play a real role. Here, we also trusted our parish with our donations, only to discover a few months ago that they were misused, not by dishonesty but by reckless optimism, jeopardizing the future.
One problem is that putting in safeguards, double-checking, not taking people on their word, and assuming by default that they might be dishonest or incompetent, runs counter of Christian values of trust and hope without proof. It’s not in logical contradiction, but it is a delicate balance. On the one hand, we try to be open, trusting, forgiving, loving, etc. On the other hand, we have to keep in mind the possible ways in which our trust could be misused and guard against them. These are a little bit in tension, and it’s uncomfortable.
I think that most parishes and chanceries traditionally do not deal well with that tension, and the increasing transparency of our times is revealing excessive trust that has played a role in many cases of poor stewardship, wasted resources, theft, and sexual abuse. Thankfully this transparency will result in better management.
468 checks over 8 years to “KB Collins,” and then entering false payees into the check registers.
Didn’t anyone during the audits over the first seven years reconcile the bank records with the archdiocese’s check registers? If they had, Ms. Collins’s sloppiness (hubris?) in making checks out to someone named “Collins” should have immediately raised suspicions. I don’t know how professionally trained the archdiocese’s financial staff is, but there were serious lapses in financial controls in this instance.
As to Ms. Collins herself, she certainly has issues regarding money that require professional help. Though the article doesn’t say, I’d like to think, as a Christian, that she used the embezzled funds for her daughter with cancer instead of for the expensive dolls. That wouldn’t make it right, of course, but perhaps we could all identify more with her financial motivations. A sad story all around.
Financial accounting has gotten better but it is still woefully inadequate. The devil is in the details. In this case we need more attention given to her supervisors than the background check. Parishes are still giving financial statements that no fiscal person would accept in business, especially the IRS. The financial picture has yet to explode in the RCC, tho it is better. It is the tip of the iceberg. When solid detailed reviews become the norm a startling picture will emerge.
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/embezzlement-expert-finds-hierarchy-uninterested
Article at NCR: Embezzlement expert finds hierarchy uninterested, by Robert McClory.
A bookkeeper in the Philly Archdiocese also stole about $1 million. http://catholicphilly.com/
So far Voice of the Faithful has as its theological mission only to improve the defense of the children against predators. It refuses to get embroiled in the hot button issues such as women’s ordination.
But it does address the practical problem of theft by church officials. There is much, much more of it than is realized. Many relatively small cases just don’t make the national headlines. What VOTF is pushing for is better oversight and transparency, but some bishops resist, not that they themselves steal, but they don’t want the oversight and transparency.