An employee at Wyuka Cemetery has allegedly been embezzling money for at least three years, according to the Lincoln cemetery’s board president.

The Nebraska State Auditor’s office discovered the alleged embezzlement last week during an audit of the cemetery,  Wyuka Board President Mike Tefft said. The Nebraska State Patrol is investigating  and the employee was dismissed on Friday, he said.

State Auditor Mike Foley confirmed that his office has “solid evidence of a very serious embezzlement at Wyuka, with losses in the tens of thousands of dollars.”

Foley said his office has also uncovered “many other serious ethical and managerial lapses,” at Wyuka. Those will be detailed in a report Foley will release during a news conference Tuesday.

Foley said he and his staff “went to Wyuka late Friday and confronted the employee, accountant Todd TerMaat, with the evidence. He acknowledged his role in the embezzlement and took his coat and walked out the door,” said Foley.

A phone message left late Monday at TerMaat’s home was not immediately returned.

The potential loss is “a substantial amount of money, in excess of $40,000,” said Tefft. “That obviously accounts for problems we have been having cash flow-wise and why we couldn’t get the cemetery back in the black,” he said on Monday.

Auditors uncovered the alleged embezzlement during a special investigation of the cemetery, which has been having financial problems for several years.

In the early 2000s, the board used about $1.4 million from its perpetual care fund — money set aside from plot sales for future maintenance — for ongoing cemetery costs, leaving less than $500,000 in the perpetual care fund at that time.  And the cemetery was still having financial problems the last few years.

Lincoln Sen. DiAnna Schimek has introduced a bill that would provide the cemetery with $300,000 in state taxes to help them out during a rough financial period.

“They are a state cemetery, created by state law, and they have never asked for money,” said Schimek about her bill (LB982).

The non-profit, public cemetery, chartered by the state in 1869, is operated by a three-member board of directors appointed by the governor.

The alleged embezzlement was a sophisticated scheme that the board of directors would likely have never uncovered, said Tefft. The private auditors that conduct an annual audit of the cemetery did not discover it, he said.

Foley’s office uncovered it after months of work, Tefft said. “I give them huge credit for (uncovering) it,” he said. “We are just all appalled.”

Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com.