Audit Objective
Did the Arkport Joint Fire District (District) Treasurer record and report receipts and disbursements accurately and in a timely manner?
Audit Period
January 1, 2024 – September 29, 2025.
We extended the audit period back to January 1, 2019 to review annual financial report (AFR) submissions.
Understanding the Audit Area
A fire district’s treasurer should record and report financial transactions in a timely and accurate manner to enable informed decision-making by a fire district’s board of commissioners, establish financial accountability, comply with reporting requirements and maintain public trust.
From January 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025, the District’s deposited receipts totaled $239,204 and disbursements totaled $145,516.
Audit Summary
The current and former Treasurers did not record and report District receipts and disbursements accurately and in a timely manner. As a result, the Board of Fire Commissioners (Board) did not have the necessary financial information to monitor the District’s financial operations. Furthermore, there is an increased risk of theft, waste and abuse of District resources.
For example, the former Treasurer:
- Inaccurately recorded or did not record 13 receipts totaling $93,978 and 20 disbursements totaling $24,502.
- Inaccurately reported or did not report 16 receipts totaling $1,436 and eight disbursements totaling $2,756.
- Did not file the required AFR for the last five fiscal years and the current year is overdue.
In addition, the current Treasurer did not prepare any records or reports for nine receipts totaling $26,324 or six disbursements totaling $1,878 since their appointment on April 15, 2025 through June 30, 2025.
Because the Treasurers did not prepare bank reconciliations and the Board did not review monthly bank statements or perform an annual audit, these errors and inaccuracies went undetected and uncorrected.
The report includes six recommendations that, if implemented, will improve the Treasurer’s records and reports. District officials generally agreed with our recommendations and their response is included in Appendix B. Our comments on the District’s response are included in Appendix C.
We conducted this audit pursuant to Article V, Section 1 of the State Constitution and the Office of the New York State Comptroller’s (OSC) authority as set forth in Article 3 of 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. 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.