Audit report concludes top-level employee embezzled $102,000
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, October 4, 2006
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – An audit committee has concluded that the second highest ranking financial employee of the Presbyterian Church (USA) embezzled $102,000 in denominational funds, ran up $21,912 in personal charges on her PCUSA-issued credit card and disbursed $8,925 from General Assembly bank accounts that could not be reconciled or documented.
The committee’s report was presented to the General Assembly Council during its meeting in Louisville last week.
The audit said the former employee, Judy Golliher, who was fired in late June, had admitted that she embezzled funds from the church. The denomination has turned over the committee’s report to criminal prosecutors, pending possible indictment.
The PCUSA said the money was insured. Joey Bailey, the denomination’s chief financial officer, told The Layman Online that Golliher had returned only $1,000 of the $132,837 in transfers to her account, personal credit card expenses and money from General Assembly bank accounts.
The report noted that PCUSA employees observed Ms. Golliher shredding documents the evening prior to being fired.
The report said that during a six-month period, from Oct. 27, 2005, through May 15, 2006, Golliher deposited six checks totaling $102,000, which were payable to Chase bank, into her personal account.
It said she used her PCUSA-issued corporate credit card to run up cash advances totaling $19,879. In addition, the report said she used the card to charge $2,033.16 for personal use.
Golliher was considered responsible for $8,925 in unreconciled cash and gift cards. The report said she failed to initiate “controls to safeguard the funds and gift cards to ensure the assets of the church were not at risk for loss or misappropriation.”
The report said the audit also reviewed a number of risk financial areas, including banking transactions for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and the Presbyterian Loan and Investment Program. The report concluded that there were no misappropriations in those areas.
Golliher succeeded Nagy Tawfik, long-time corporate controller for the PCUSA, who was fired in 2004 for “errors in judgment” surrounding the opening bidding process for the external auditing of the church’s financial records.
John Detterick, then executive director of the General Assembly,” said there was no evidence that funds had been misused in Nagy’s case.