Audit Objective
Did the Great River Fire District (District) Treasurer provide the Board of Fire Commissioners (Board) with complete and accurate financial reports?
Audit Period
January 1, 2024 – December 31, 2024
Understanding the Audit Area
A fire district treasurer should maintain complete and accurate accounting records to provide a board of fire commissioners with adequate reports for informed decision-making, legal compliance and accountability. These reports are essential for a board to monitor the fire district’s financial health, make sound fiscal decisions, and ensure that the fire district complies with various laws and maintains the public’s trust.
The District’s 2024 total budgeted appropriations were $419,735 and the District had four bank accounts with a combined balance of approximately $1 million as of December 31, 2024.
Audit Summary
The Treasurer did not always provide the Board with complete and accurate financial reports. As a result, the Board did not have adequate financial information it needed to properly monitor the District’s finances.
The Treasurer manually prepared financial reports which contained the following errors:
- An account balance report which was not structured in a format to provide the Board with adequate information. The Treasurer’s calculated book balances for the general fund checking account varied from the accounting record’s book balance by $12 to $4,701. The Treasurer did not provide the Board with information showing how she determined the calculated book balance.
- The listings of claims included in the Treasurer’s reports were inaccurate or incomplete for 28 claims totaling $4,464 of 279 claims totaling $340,597.
The report includes five recommendations that, if implemented, will improve the District’s financial activities. District officials generally agreed with our findings and indicated they have initiated corrective action, 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 (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.