Janet E. Pachmayer, the former bookkeeper at St. Anthony Catholic Church in Menomonee Falls, WI, was convicted of three misdemeanor theft charges last week and faces about two years in prison. She stated previously that she stole roughly $134,000 over the past few years by overstating the utility bills by a few hundred dollars and pocketing the difference. This raises some major questions of basic accounting procedure. When the pastor and a trustee at the parish signed checks, didn't they look at the amount on the check and the amount on the bill or did they not even have the bill with the check? This person was obviously given too much control of the parish finances. A basic audit would probably have uncovered the overstating of the utility bills because it is such a large portion of a parish's budget, and a basic audit would have also corrected the procedure for the signing and mailing of checks.
About one year ago, former Milwaukee Archbishop Dolan stated that church audits would be around the corner. So far... no news. The rumor is that this is because of the prohibitive cost. Nevertheless, something needs to be done to bring pastors and office persons and trustees up to snuff on basic auditing procedures. It would save us from many future headaches.
A Faithful Catholic
9 comments:
Didn't Archbishop Weakland reveal in his memoirs that one of his motives to keep the Marcoux settlement under a half million dollars was that was the threshold for additional scrutiny under diocesan financial controls? And though the $450,000 paid supposedly had to at least also be approved by Bishop Sklba and Mr. Schneider, don't the memoirs talk as if he alone decided to pay? It's as if it literally went without saying that they would rubber-stamp it.
That, unfortunately, is a separate issue. Weakland did not do anything illegal. If the Archdiocese were audited with its findings reported to lay board that had power under canon law, that would not have happened.
You claim such an audit board would have deterred the Marcoux settlement. William L. Portier's Commonweal review of the Weakland memoir discusses the settlement but does not question its propriety. How would such a board be constituted that it wouldn't have been made up of people likewise inclined?
You use "illegal" in a highly specific and technical sense, indeed.
Others might construct the payment as fraud on the donors.
Considering how Ms. Pachmayer's case illustrates the seriousness of these matters, did they ever figure out the reported financial discrepancies at St. John Vianney in Brookfield?
Per my previous blog entry: http://faithfulmilwaukeecatholic.blogspot.com/2009/01/financial-common-sense-and-you-tube.html
It appears that the money was stolen at Vianney before it was counted. There were significant differences in the cash/loose collection county between when Fr. Len was there and when he was not there.
"There were significant differences in the cash/loose collection county between when Fr. Len was there and when he was not there."
So, like a Spinal Tap drummer's death, it's "a mystery better left unsolved".
I don't know what you are talking about TB. Do you mean you are waiting for prosecution. We all know what happened. This is my third time writing this: he stole cash from the collection before it was counted when he was the only one around.
Can that be proven? I don't know. But it's very likely based on the great difference in the amounts collected between when he was at the parish and when he was on vacation.
"Do you mean you are waiting for prosecution."
If your surmise is correct, there might well have been reasons for how the matter was handled, including there being no prosecution. My question, though, is why this is being left unexplained.
Maybe I just took too seriously that recent Catholic Herald editorial on how open communication and candor are essential. I suppose I should have known better after consecutive issues had long articles not explaining why the president and principal of Dominican High School suddenly resigned.
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