The Fresno Arts Council office, located on Van Ness Avenue in downtown Fresno, photographed Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. Fresno police were notified $1.5 million of taxpayer funds went missing from the Fresno Arts Council in a case of alleged embezzlement.
ERIC PAUL ZAMORA
ezamora@fresnobee.com
In its first public statement since last week, the Fresno Arts Council on Friday said it is treating allegations one of its employees embezzled $1.5 million in taxpayer dollars “with the utmost seriousness and urgency.”
The statement from the organization, which handled public grants set aside by the local parks and arts tax for the past few years, said the arts council began securing records and initiating “appropriate next steps” immediately after being informed of the allegations.
“We are fully cooperating with the City of Fresno and law enforcement,” the statement said. “Because this is an active investigation, we are unable to provide further comment at this time.”
The arts council added it will “provide additional information as appropriate.”
The 91-word, one-paragraph statement follows a week of silence from the arts council after it first acknowledged last Friday that police were made aware of the alleged embezzlement of public dollars by one of its employees. City officials have confirmed the $1.5 million allegedly stolen came from $5.7 million in money from Measure P, Fresno’s 3/8-cent sales tax for parks and arts projects approved by voters in 2018.
The arts council in 2023 was hired by the city to administer the distribution of Measure P arts grants. But the city on Tuesday announced it was taking back control of the money’s distribution, blaming the organization’s “lack of safeguards” for the alleged embezzlement at the arts council.
The arts council last week called itself a “victim of unauthorized financial transactions.”
Public officials have not yet named the employee, who has not been charged but no longer works at the arts council.
This story was originally published February 13, 2026 at 12:50 PM.
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Erik is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, where he helped launch an effort to better meet the news needs of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Before that, he served as editor-in-chief of his community college student newspaper, Riverside City College Viewpoints, where he covered the impacts of the Salton Sea’s decline on its adjacent farm worker communities in the Southern California desert. Erik’s work is supported through the California Local News Fellowship program.