In addition to her position as office manager, she helped in women’s ministries, led Bible studies, did some churchwide event coordinating, prayed regularly with staff t is a licensed minister,

Read the full article in the Beach Reporter  to learn about some of the practices this employee used to hide her theft.

Anderson was paying all of the church’s bills, but whenever there was money left over, she would take it.

I knew we were looking at phony bank statements. She was having the statements retyped and she was stealing money through online banking. She set up online accounts with my (the pastor’s) Social Security number”

 There has been a spike in newspaper stories recently about employee theft , and unfortunately houses of worship are an easy place for a financial predator to strike.  It can be very hard to protect your business or non-profit organization from this type of criminal behavior if you are not careful. Loss prevention not only the battle against theft, or but also the litigation costs associated with negligent hiring.   The article doesn’t mention whether the church had originally run a background check on this employee.  It is paramount for any organizaton to properly screen their employees, especially anyone with check writing and fidicuary responsibilties.   Run a credit history check for employment, and also check county civil records search for any and all bankruptcy, liens and judgments records.  Finally, run a criminal records seach to make sure your candidates hasn’t been convicted of embezzlement.  

Hopefully the church will be able to get back some of the stolen funds.  Stay out the news by background screening all of your organization’s employees. 

Read the full article here:

 background checks
employment screening
church screening
volunteer background checks