The Burnaby school district has filed a civil claim with the Supreme Court of B.C., alleging a former bookkeeper at Alpha Secondary defrauded the district of $100,000 over a period of three years.
The district's secretary-treasurer Greg Frank could not speak to the specifics of the case.
"I can say most of these types of instances are caught through internal audit processes," he said.
According to the claim, the bookkeeper, Jodi Fingarsen, was responsible for Alpha's financial transactions and some clerical duties, including co-signing cheques, maintaining petty cash, reconciling bank statements and calculating rebates. She was also tracking school expenses, preparing financial statements and handling money from students fees, vending machines and fundraising.
In the claim, the school district alleges that Fingarsen defrauded the district of more than $100,000, mainly by fraudulently cashing cheques.
The claim also alleges that Fingarsen "fraudulently converted, for her own use and for her own benefit, various amounts of cash received from numerous sources as a result of fundraising activities, donations, student fees and fees for field trips, etc."
The school district also named CIBC and Vancity as defendents in the suit. Vancity was the drawee bank, and Fingarsen had at least one personal account with CIBC.
The claim alleges CIBC honoured some of the cheques with a forged endorsement or no endorsement at all.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
To read the notice of civil claim, go to Jennifer Moreau's blog at www.burnabynow. com.
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