Audit Objective
Did the Eastport Fire District (District) Board of Commissioners (Board) seek competition for the procurement of goods and services?
Audit Period
January 1, 2024 – December 31, 2024
Understanding the Audit Area
Generally, fire district (district) purchases should be made in the best interest of the taxpayers. One method for ensuring that goods and services are acquired in a cost-effective manner is to create as much competition as possible. Whether using formal competitive bids in accordance with New York State General Municipal Law (GML), requests for proposals (RFPs) or written and verbal quotes, a well-planned solicitation effort is important to reach as many qualified vendors as possible. Every district must adopt its own policies and procedures for procurement of goods and services not required by law to be competitively bid.
A Board member is responsible for the District’s procurement process. During the audit period, the District paid 108 vendors for goods and services totaling $847,191. This included 11 professional service and insurance vendors paid $214,672 and 20 vendors paid $96,955 for purchases that did not require formal competition but required quotes.
Audit Summary
The Board-adopted procurement policy (Policy) addresses the procurement of goods and services not required to be bid. However, the Policy does not provide guidance or encourage competitive methods for the procurement of professional services and insurance. The Board did not use a competitive method such as issuing RFPs or obtaining competitive quotes to procure professional services and insurance coverage from 10 vendors totaling $203,097. When officials do not seek competition for professional services, they lack assurance that services are procured in the most economical way, in the best interests of the taxpayers.
In addition, the District paid 20 vendors for goods and services totaling $96,955, without obtaining quotes as required by the Policy. As a result, the District may not have received the best price for the goods and services it purchased.
The report includes three recommendations that, if implemented, will improve District officials’ ability to ensure they are receiving the proper quality and pricing for their procurements of goods and services. District officials generally agreed with our recommendations, and their response is included in Appendix B.
We conducted this audit pursuant to Article V, Section 1 of the State Constitution and the Office of New York State Comptroller’s (OSC) authority as set forth in Article 3 of GML. Our methodology and standards are included in Appendix C.
The Board has the responsibility to initiate corrective action. Pursuant to Section 181-b of New York State Town Law, a written corrective action plan (CAP) that addresses the findings and recommendations in this report must be prepared and forwarded to our office within 90 days. To the extent practicable, implementation of the CAP must begin by the end of the next fiscal year. 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.