As Castle Rock Elementary School’s Community Club gears up for its busiest fundraising season, the club is trying to rebuild the confidence of its members after its former treasurer pleaded no contest last month to allegedly taking more than $40,000 in club money over a six-year period.
The nonprofit club’s new leadership has since implemented stricter financial control with frequent internal audits and bank statements available monthly to members, according to executive board member Cindy Yee, one of five executive members.
The problems came from the board previously accepting spreadsheets rather than statements from former treasurer Lisa May, now known as Lisa Haygood, Yee said. May returns to court Oct. 23 for sentencing.
“The way things were done in the past, there were no checks and balances with the treasurer,” Yee said. “We only went by what she would provide, which was an Excel spreadsheet.”
New members coming onto the board discovered the discrepancies and reported the matter to police. May left her position as treasurer in 2011 because her child no longer attended the elementary school.
“We noticed that there was no money and we had been doing a lot of fundraising,” Yee said. “Things just didn’t make sense, we just had a hunch so we dug deeper and subpoenaed bank records and bank statements.”
The Sheriff’s Department arrested May in March for forgery and grand theft, according to Detective Derrick Coleman, who investigated the case. Detectives sifted through a paper trail of bank records, checks and receipts before presenting the case to the District Attorney’s Office, which brought six felony charges against May.
Police found forged signatures on documents that required both the president and treasurer to sign off on, Yee said.
She said the suspects’ cash donations never made it to the bank.
Yee said she spoke about the topic to show transparency now that the investigation has concluded.
“We don’t brush these things under the rug,” she said. “Whenever we find anything like this, we prosecute to the full extent.”
She hopes the Castle Rock Community Club’s story will also incite other clubs to audit their finances.
The club’s finances have turned around in recent years, she said.
“What I was really impressed with was with how quickly we were able to fund raise and watch our spending for the last two years and get back on track,” Yee said. “We built back up our bank account with the help of the students, the parents and the community club. We’re financially sound, we’re doing really well.”
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