Former PSUSD clerk charged with embezzlement
A felony charge of embezzlement has been filed against a former Desert Hot Springs High School clerk suspected of embezzling close to $350,000 in funds over a nearly 15-year span.
Deneen Kuhlman, a former employee of Palm Springs Unified School District first hired at DHS High in 1997, allegedly embezzled the funds from DHS High’s United Student Body fund from “on or about January 1, 2002 to October 31, 2017,” according to a felony complaint filed in Riverside County Superior Court.
Desert Hot Springs Police Chief Dale Mondary said once an audit confirmed major discrepancies, detectives spent the next seven months interviewing between 75 to 100 people. Those interviews, he said, confirmed that Kuhlman was the sole individual responsible for the funds in question, and that she solely siphoned the money from the Associated Student Body account over the course of more than a decade.
The stolen funds were supposed to help Desert Hot Springs High School pay for educational trips, athletic uniforms and other programs and events that would have directly impacted students.
“Who knows what (the missing money) impacts because it’s just those positive things,” said Mondary. “Those positive experiences that kids get that ignite that spark in them that maybe did happen because of that impact? (That someone would take the money is) just so demoralizing and sad to me.”
“As soon as we learned of these horrendous discrepancies we took the proper reporting and auditing steps to confirm what had happened,” said Supt. of Schools Dr. Sandra Lyon. “Something like this should never have happened, and the District has a zero tolerance for any illegal behavior by our employees. We are appalled that this type of egregious fraud could have occurred, and the missing funds will be replaced by the District. We have filed a claim with our insurance company to recover the stolen funds.”
Kuhlman resigned from her position shortly after the discrepancies were discovered. The district has since taken actions to prevent future fiscal malpractice, implemented “additional monthly internal controls on all student government and other accounts.”
In February the district confirmed an investigation into embezzlement was underway, but would not confirm the suspect or how much money was alleged to have been stolen.
Read the full felony complaint here:
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