The former executive director of the Post Falls Senior Center was sentenced to a month in jail after pleading guilty Friday to a misdemeanor for embezzling from the ailing organization.

Alison McArthur, 49, who ran the center for six years before being fired in 2017, was accused of stealing money from the center to repair her car, cover her personal telephone bills and pay for a 2016 trip to Disneyland, according to court records.

Deputy prosecutor Julia Schoffstall said despite pleading guilty to petit theft through a plea agreement, what McArthur did was wrong and needed to be punished.

“You can’t take advantage of people this way,” Schoffstall said. “It’s socially unacceptable. It’s wrong.”

First District Judge Cynthia K.C. Meyer accepted McArthur’s plea and sentenced her to 365 days in jail with 300 days suspended. The judge set 30 of the days of discretionary jail and 35 days of actual jail time. Meyer also ordered $3,500 restitution but waived any fines and fees.

“I think this is a very good deal,” Meyer said.

McArthur, who testified at Friday’s hearing in Coeur d’Alene, said the money she billed to the center’s credit card had been cleared through the board chairman, though McArthur had not received the green light for the transactions from the entire board, as its bylaws required.

“I made a mistake, and I’m sorry,” she said. “Now that I have been kicked down to the bottom, just let me rebuild my life.”

McArthur maintained the center’s books, but sometime toward the end of her tenure she prohibited board members from reviewing the finances, according to a police report.

“While McArthur was at the Center she was in full control of the Center’s finances … toward the end, McArthur would not let anyone look at the books and [the board] purely went off what McArthur was telling [them],” Det. Kip Hollenbeck of the Post Falls police wrote in his report.

Several expenditures, many of them in the $200 to $300 range, were unaccounted for, according to police, though some of the payments were later repaid.

McArthur’s attorney, Jonathon Frantz, said his client’s actions were not concealed, but done in the open because she thought she had approval by at least some board members.

“This was not a crime of secrecy,” Frantz said. “She wasn’t intentionally making a crime.”

McArthur has repaid the restitution and will be allowed to serve her jail time during the weekends, the judge ordered.

“What you have done has hurt the community,” Meyer said. “There is a price that needs to be paid.”