In California, at the First Community Church, many members of the Board and the church leaders all met to discuss the discrepancies in their collections from the congregation. After approximately forty-five weeks of discrepancies, the church has lost $23,399. Therefore, questions started to arise. After questioning the people responsible for transporting the funds and recording the amounts, they were not any further in the investigation. However, by questioning multiple people, it made the actual person responsible for the missing money begin to feel guilty. Once this questioning arose numerous questions, Jennie, the guilty party, decided to throw the suspicion onto another individual, Joey.
With Jennie having a CPA license, she has particular rules she must follow. By stealing from the First Community Church, Jennie has gone against all of the ethical obligations she undertook when receiving her license. Although Jennie believed her actions were just since she was giving the funds to a local homeless shelter, it does not take away from the fact that she stole from the church. One must always remember that what you think is right, is not always legal.
Not only did Jennie go against her ethical responsibilities by stealing from the church, she also went against them when she attempted to turn the attention towards one of her associates within the church, Joey Ching. This was only a sparing attempt to turn the attention away from her. Not once did she think of how this could affect Joey, until after the Board and church leaders had already formed a new opinion of Joey.
As a member of the Board, she has earned the respect of her fellow Board members, as well as from the church leaders. Although Jennie has their respect, first and foremost, she has responsibilities to them as well. Her responsibilities include keeping track of the amounts of funds donated to the church. Since the church is a non-profit institution, they are not required to file any of their statements with the SEC like public institutions are. Without these requirements, it is very important that internal controls are established. By establishing controls, it can ensure a more accurate account of their financials.
Joey was actually the one responsible for more internal controls being established. It was his suggestion that urged the church to enforce a control in the collection of the funds from the congregation. This control consists of different people collecting the money from the congregation than those who record the amounts and make the deposits.
Once Jennie realized the Board had turned their suspicion towards Joey, she decided to call Joey and inform him of what had happened. Since the Board had asked Joey to attend the next meeting, Jennie asked him not to come due to him having no involvement in the situation. However, if I was Joey, I would still attend the next meeting at the request of the Board. This would help ensure the Board that Joey is not hiding any information and had nothing to do with the embezzlement.
Regardless of whether Joey attended the meeting or not, Jennie would still have to explain and attempt to justify her actions. After deliberating over the situation, Allen Yuen, the executive director of the church, decides to fire Jennie as result of what she had done. In regards to the ethical perspective of this decision, Yuen’s decision and order for Jennie to replace the funds are entirely justified. It would also be justifiable for Yuen to pursue a legal suit against Jennie if he saw fit. This would then entitle the courts to require Jennie to make substantial payments to the church.
Although Jennie believes that she was doing the right thing by helping out the homeless shelter whose members attended the First Community Church, her first obligation was to the church. Her actions of stealing from the church went against her oath to the accounting society when she received her CPA license. Therefore, everything she had worked to achieve in regards to her career had been compromised with these actions. If the church decided to take legal actions against her, she could lose her eligibility to be a CPA. After seeing all of these consequences, one might wonder if she ever thought about these before she stole the money. If only she had gone to the leaders first and seen if the clergy would approve of donating funds to the homeless shelter, she would not have to deal with any repercussions.
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