Audit Objective
Did the Henrietta Fire Company, Inc. (Company) Board of Directors (Board) provide adequate oversight of financial operations?
Audit Period
January 1, 2023 – June 16, 2025
Understanding the Audit Area
The Board must provide oversight to help ensure financial operations are properly managed. Adequate oversight includes ensuring that Company officials maintain comprehensive records, appropriately segregate duties or implement compensating controls to safeguard funds, and review records and reports to detect discrepancies. The Company is governed by its articles of incorporation, bylaws and nine-member Board what is generally responsible for managing the Company’s financial activities.
From January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2024, the Company’s disbursements totaled $299,640 and revenues and redeposited startup cash1 totaled $372,140.
Audit Summary
The Board did not provide adequate oversight of financial operations, adopt detailed written bylaws or financial policies or enforce the limited financial provisions the bylaws and financial policies did contain. Because the Board did not ensure that the Treasurer maintained custody of all Company funds as required by the Company’s bylaws, the Treasurer’s financial records and reports to the Board did not include all Company activity. In addition, the Board generally did not review bank statements, canceled check images and bank reconciliations for any accounts to monitor financial operations. Therefore, the Board did not have the necessary information to help it ensure that the Company’s financial operations were adequately accounted for, recorded and reported. As a result, the Company had an increased risk of theft, waste and abuse of Company resources.
In addition, the Board generally did not review the Company’s claims before they were paid to help ensure that all 448 claims paid from January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2024, totaling $299,640 were properly supported with documentation, such as itemized invoices, and for appropriate Company purposes. Furthermore, the Board did not ensure that the Treasurer maintained supporting documentation for all revenues and redeposited startup cash totaling $372,140 that was received and deposited from January 1, 2023, through December 31, 2024.
Also, the Board could not support that the membership approved using all $68,907 of foreign fire insurance (FFI) tax proceeds. In addition, officials used the funds for inappropriate purchases, such as purchasing approximately $600 in gift cards for attendees at the Company’s annual membership banquet.
Without detailed bylaws, written policies and procedures, complete and accurate records and reports, periodic review of financial records and authorized claims supported with documentation, the Board and membership have less assurance of properly overseeing the Company’s financial operations.
The report includes 13 recommendations that, if implemented, will improve the Board’s financial operations oversight. Company officials generally agreed with our findings and indicated they will initiate corrective action. Appendix C includes our comments on the Company’s response.
We conducted this audit pursuant to Article V, Section 1 of the State Constitution and New York State Office of the State Comptroller’s (OSC) authority as set forth in Article 3 of the New York State General Municipal Law (GML). Our methodology and standards are included in Appendix D.
The Board has the responsibility to initiate corrective action. We encourage the Board to prepare a written corrective action plan (CAP) that addresses the recommendations in this report and forward it to our office within 90 days. For more information on preparing and filing your CAP, please refer to our brochure, Responding to an OSC Audit Report, which you received with the draft audit report. We encourage the Board to make the CAP available for public review.
1 This is cash used at the beginning of fundraisers, generally to make change and redeposited after the event’s end.