Police arrested a Sammamish woman Thursday who allegedly embezzled more than $170,000 from the Skyline High School Booster Club last year.
“Those funds were meant to benefit the 51 teams, clubs and councils at Skyline High School,” according to a King County Sheriff’s Office press release.
The woman, 53, was reportedly the former booster club treasurer and “sole signing authority” for accounts from 2008 until she “abruptly resigned” in January 2015, according to the release.
The suspect is currently in King County Jail, booked for first-degree theft, according to King County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Sgt. Cindi West. She has not yet been charged.
Skyline High School Booster Club President Kathy Baril said the club’s board members were “shocked and angry” when they first found out January 2015.
“[The suspect’s] actions meant that a lot of money that had been raised by the booster club in the past did not benefit the school as was intended,” Baril said in an email. “It is frustrating because the boosters could have done a lot of great things with that money.”
Booster club officials first contacted Sammamish police in February 2015, after conducting a financial review that unearthed financial irregularities, Baril told the Reporter in early 2015. They also informed their membership of the incident.
Baril said it’s taken more than 1,000 volunteer hours “toward discovery and rebuilding of the club’s finances and the establishment safeguards to prevent this from happening going forward.”
Sammamish Detective William Albright, who led the investigation, spent the last year combing through seven years worth of bank statements, looking at the money going in and out of the booster’s account and the suspect’s personal account.
His investigation revealed numerous checks, totally more than $48,000, made out to the suspect and her husband from 2009 to 2014. During the same time period, the suspect also reportedly deposited more than $59,000 in cash to her personal account, money thought to have belonged to the booster club.
In May 2015, the suspect reportedly wrote the booster club a reimbursement check for $31,500, according to the press release.
That amount was “well short of the total losses,” Baril said.
The club estimates a loss of more than $200,000, which Albright said “could be an accurate amount of cash from concessions sales and fund raisers,” according to the release.
“It is important to know that safeguards are now in place to secure the club’s finances, and more important, to encourage our community to continue to supporting the programs at Skyline,” she said. “Extracurricular activities connect students to the school and community, teach valuable life skills and foster life-long friendships and memories.”
Baril boasts the booster club’s success this year, under those new guidelines and financial safeguards.
She said the club’s general fund will donate more than $45,000 to more than 80 school clubs and athletic teams this year. On any given year, the club, a nonprofit organization, usually manages between $125,000-$175,000.
King County is forwarding the case to the King County prosecuting attorney’s office.
For more on the Skyline High School Booster Club, visit www.skylineboosterclub.com. The next general membership meeting is at 7 p.m. May 9 in the Skyline library.
