Audit Objective
Did the Richburg-Wirt Fire District (District) Board of Fire Commissioners (Board) provide adequate oversight of financial operations?
Audit Period
January 1, 2023 – April 29, 2025
We extended the audit period through October 6, 2025, to review fiscal training records.
Understanding the Audit Area
Fire districts are district corporations and political subdivisions of the State of New York (State), distinct from the municipalities in which they are located. Fire districts are generally governed by an elected board of fire commissioners (board) that is responsible for providing adequate oversight to ensure proper financial management. This includes developing and adopting required policies, conducting financial activity in a transparent manner, reviewing financial records, completing training in a timely manner and complying with purchasing requirements.
The District’s average annual budgeted appropriations for the 2023, 2024 and 2025 fiscal years was $102,007.
Audit Summary
The Board did not provide adequate oversight of financial operations. Specifically, the Board did not:
- Develop and adopt required policies, including an investment policy, a procurement policy and a code of ethics.
- Use reserve funds in a transparent manner and could not support that transfers totaling $36,611 were adopted through Board resolutions and that public hearings were held, when required.
- Audit the Treasurer’s records in accordance with New York State Town Law (Town Law) Section 177.
- Ensure all of its members completed mandatory oversight training within the required time period. For example, one Board member, the Chairman, completed the training more than 900 days late.
- Use competitive bidding for the purchase of an off-road utility vehicle (UTV) for approximately $28,000 as required, and as a result, may have paid more for the UTV than necessary. For example, we found a local vendor who offered a similar UTV for approximately $8,000 (40 percent) less than what the Board paid.
Because the Board did not provide adequate oversight of financial operations, it cannot ensure that District activities remained free from favoritism and the appearance of impropriety and cannot ensure District assets were adequately safeguarded from potential misuse, loss or theft. In addition, three of the five Board members did not respond to our requests to discuss the audit.
The report includes nine recommendations that, if implemented, will improve the Board’s oversight of financial operations.
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 State Comptroller’s authority as set forth in Article 3 of the New York State General Municipal Law (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 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.