Audit Objective 

Determine whether the Port Ewen Fire District’s (District) Board of Fire Commissioners (Board) properly managed the District’s financial operations.

Key Findings 

The Board and officials did not properly manage District’s financial operations. Specifically, the Board did not: 

• Ensure that the District Treasurer (Treasurer) maintained adequate accounting records. As a result, the Board did not have sufficient information to adequately oversee the District’s financial activities and make informed financial decisions.
• Annually review the District’s investment policy and seek legal investment options that align with the District’s investment needs and benefit taxpayers. However, soliciting investment options may have resulted in greater investment earnings. For example, the District’s investment earnings totaled $968, but had officials solicited interest rate quotes and considered other investment options, they may have realized investment earnings ranging between approximately $42,000 and $51,000.
• Develop realistic budgets, which caused appropriations to be overestimated by an average of $190,817 (35 percent) each year from 2019 through 2023.
• Adopt a written multiyear financial or capital plan.

Key Recommendations 

• Maintain adequate accounting records.
• Consider all four objectives of a comprehensive investment program – legality, safety, liquidity and yield – when investing available funds.

District officials generally agreed with our recommendations and have initiated or indicated they planned to initiate corrective action. Appendix B includes our comment on an issue that was raised in the District’s response letter.