Kyra Worthy was appointed to the Personnel Board by the City Council on October 16, 2018. Two RPA members made and seconded the motion to appoint her, and the other Council members, including four RPA members, voted in favor. I voted no because I knew her reputation from running a Richmond-based non-profit sponsored by Chevron, from which she was fired before moving to SF SAFE..

COUNCIL AS A WHOLE I-1. The matter to appoint a public safety representative to the Personnel Board from the following panel of three nominees elected at the Personnel Board Election held August 27, 2018, to September 11, 2018: (1) Kyra Worthy, (2) Catherine Montalbo, and (3) Walter E. Russey III, was presented by City Clerk Pamela Christian. Mrs. Christian provided an oral report. On motion of Councilmember Recinos, seconded by Councilmember Martinez, appointed Kyra Worthy by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmembers Beckles, Martinez, Myrick, Recinos, and Vice Mayor Willis. Noes: Mayor Butt. Absent: Councilmember Choi. Abstained: None.

Personnel Board appointments are different from other appointments to boards and commission. Two of the five members are selected by the City Council from nominations from Public Safety unions and non-public safety unions. Worthy was one of three nominations by public safety.

Personnel Board Minutes indicate she served until December of 2023, although she was frequently absent.

Kyra Worthy has been charged with multiple felonies.

San Francisco

Ex-leader of S.F. nonprofit arrested following allegations she spent public money on lavish parties

SF Gov TV The former executive director of the nonprofit SF SAFE was arrested Tuesday for allegedly misusing more than $700,000 in public funds and donations, with prosecutors alleging a brazen scheme involving fake invoices, the theft of employee wages and a custom-made stamp used to forge signatures.

Newly released court documents detail how the since-fired Kyra Worthy allegedly drained the charity’s bank accounts over the six-year period that she led the organization, funneling money intended for crime-prevention services into lavish parties, luxury gift boxes and her own personal bank account, prosecutors said. 

“Ms. Worthy’s theft and mismanagement resulted in the 48-year-old charity having no assets and ceasing operations in January of 2024,” prosecutors said in a statement.

Worthy faces 34 felony charges for alleged crimes involving embezzlement, wage theft, and misappropriation of public money, according to court documents filed by the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. She was booked into San Francisco jail Tuesday afternoon on a $100,000 bond, and was expected to make her first court appearance in the coming days.

The Chronicle was not immediately able to reach Worthy for comment, and it remained unclear whether she had retained an attorney as of Tuesday afternoon.

SF SAFE is among a group of taxpayer-supported nonprofits that have been accused of fraud or mismanagement in recent years. The CEO of homeless service provider United Council of Human Services was accused of using the nonprofit’s funds to enrich herself. Officials are investigating homeless service provider Providence Foundation over alleged pay problems, nepotistic hiring practices, and violating city policies. The CEO of J&J Community Resource Center, which provides services to low-income families, is accused of forging invoices, double billing the city and seeking reimbursement for cigars and motorcycle rentals. Other homeless services nonprofits have recently been scrutinized for ineffective and wasteful spending. City officials have called for greater accountability among the organizations that provide vital services.

The criminal case against Worthy comes after a cascade of damning allegations the crime-prevention group surfaced over the last several months, beginning with a city audit released in January.

Worthy was fired shortly after the audit was published on allegations of check forgery and submitting unsupported invoices.

But an arrest warrant showed that law enforcement officials was first made aware of the group’s possible misspending months earlier, when the owner of a company contracted to install surveillance cameras around the city reported that the organization failed to pay him more than $600,000 for work that was already completed.

The owner said that after he presented SF SAFE with their invoices, the nonprofit turned to another donor-funded organization to cover the cost, even though that group had already paid SF SAFE for the work.

The criminal investigation began in earnest after Jan. 18, when the city controller’s office released a report that faulted the San Francisco Police Department for failing to adequately review the nonprofit’s expenses, and subsequently approving nearly $80,000 in excessive or ineligible charges. The report, which laid out ineligible expenditures for things like ride-hailing services, hotel fees and luxury gift boxes, noted that its review was based only on a sampling of $900,000 that police granted the nonprofit from July 2022 and March 2023. The actual amount of money misspent during this time, the report’s authors stated, was likely “significantly higher.”

Days after the report’s release, SF SAFE Senior Board Director Dan Lawson and the nonprofit’s attorney, Dylan Hackett, told the Chronicle that the nonprofit had ceased operations and fired Worthy after discovering discrepancies in their bank accounts, including one account that posted a balance of negative-$16.

More reports of allegedly suspicious financial behavior came tumbling in over the following days: A tenant at SF SAFE’s headquarters said he suspected his rent checks were being used to pay SF SAFE employees. A check apparently signed by Worthy and the group’s treasurer had bounced, and the treasurer reported that he had never signed that check. And an employee reported that some of their recent payments had been made not by the standard check, but by Venmo or Cash App, according to court records

Later, the nonprofit’s treasurer told police that a stamp of his signature was found during a search of the SF SAFE offices, and that he was unaware that it existed and had never approved of one being made, court documents showed.

A search of the group’s bank records, obtained via a warrant, showed that Worthy allegedly made monthly transfers from the nonprofit’s savings account into its checking account between 2019 and 2021, and then spent the money. In August 2022, investigators said Worthy liquidated an account worth $50,000 and put the proceeds in the checking account. 

“By the late spring of 2023, the only money left in the SFPCU accounts was a $5,000 monthly transfer from the SF SAFE Wells Fargo account,” investigators said. “Worthy spent nearly this full amount every month.”

Many of the funds appeared to be used on Worthy’s personal expenses, prosecutors said. They included hundreds of dollars in Lyft rides every month, several purchases at Marshalls and trip expenses such as airline charges for flights and oversize baggage, hotels, more than $6,000 in out-of-state car rentals and out-of-state restaurants.

Investigators said Worthy in total embezzled more than $100,000 of SF SAFE funds, which included multiple checks to her landlord, a paralegal in North Carolina who did personal work for Worthy, and a health care worker who received more than $90,000 for caring for Worthy’s parents in North Carolina.

The payments to the health care worker were described in SF SAFE’s records as expenses for community meetings or “other professional services,” investigators said. However, they noted, in some instances the memo line of Worthy’s own records mentioned her parents by name.

Investigators say Worthy committed nearly $80,000 wage theft by garnishing money intended for federal and state tax collection, but then failed to pay taxes on her employees’ behalf.

Worthy’s alleged spending additionally included lavish gifts and parties ostensibly connected to the nonprofit, even as she continued to steal from employees’ paychecks. One big-ticket item, an Oct. 28 event called “Candy Explosion,” rang up nearly $100,000 in expenses, including $20,000 for desserts and ice cream, $19,000 for a petting zoo, face painting and bouncy houses, $20,000 for event planners and $7,000 for “mobile luxury restrooms,” according to court documents.

Worthy is the only person associated with SF SAFE to be accused of a crime. Officials said the case will continue to be investigated by the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office Public Integrity Task Force.

Still, investigators expressed skepticism that SF SAFE’s board members would have been blindsided by Worthy’s alleged spending habits. Between 2019 and 2022, three separate accounting firms flagged issues with Worthy’s purchases, and accountants sent multiple emails to board members imploring them to control her spending, investigators said.

Worthy additionally kept “meticulous” records of her expenditures, officials said, adding that board members attended events held at expensive venues, or that included extravagant catering services, like a prime rib carving station.

Investigators said it would be “difficult” to prove that all of Worthy’s expenditures qualified as theft, because “the board was aware of her spending for years and neglected to intervene.”

Lawson, who was president of the nonprofit’s board when Worthy was fired in January, did not respond to multiple requests for comment Tuesday.

San Francisco police asked the district attorney’s office to take over the investigation due to the police department’s long-standing relationship with the nonprofit, which provided crime-prevention services to police before it shuttered in January.

The criminal probe into Worthy included the execution of 25 search warrants, interviews with more than two dozen witnesses and the review of thousands of pages of financial and business records, officials said.

During the course of the investigation, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins also recused herself after investigators determined that some of the money allegedly stolen by Worthy stemmed from a donation made by a person Jenkins had a professional relationship with.

Gina Guitron, who worked as a program and operations manager for SF SAFE until the nonprofit collapsed, was relieved to learn of the arrest.

“Not that it feels good that somebody has been arrested, but at least it feels like a step toward justice is being taken,” Guitron told the Chronicle. “You get what you deserve.”

Guitron said she and her former colleagues, who did not receive their final paychecks from the nonprofit, felt like their plight had fallen on “deaf ears” at City Hall.

To her knowledge, Guitron said she and her former colleagues are still owed money.

“It was disappointing — we felt as a group like nothing was being done,” Guitron said.

Reach Megan Cassidy: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com. Reach Michael Barba: michael.barba@sfchronicle.com