Audit Objective
Did the Snyder Fire District (District) Board of Fire Commissioners (Board) properly audit claims before payment? Audit Period
Audit Period
January 1, 2024 – December 24, 2025
Understanding the Audit Area
A board of fire commissioners (board) is responsible for ensuring that tax dollars are used in the best interests of taxpayers. To do so, the board should properly audit claims before payment to ensure that district funds are spent only for legitimate, authorized and necessary purposes and that all expenditures are adequately supported. An effective claims auditing process helps verify that goods and services were received; amounts billed are accurate; expenditures comply with applicable laws, policies and contracts; and payments are not duplicated or unauthorized.
The claims audit is often the last line of defense by helping safeguard public funds from unauthorized, improper or fraudulent claims. The claims audit establishes an important internal control that promotes accountability and transparency over public funds and helps safeguard district assets from errors, waste, fraud and misuse. It also helps establish the control consciousness of board members and membership and helps make them aware that a careful review of claims should occur before public funds are disbursed. Without an effective claims auditing process, inappropriate or unsupported expenditures may be paid and remain undetected, which increases the risk that the district could suffer a financial loss and weaken public confidence in the district’s stewardship of taxpayer resources.
The District’s 2025 budgeted appropriations totaled approximately $1.7 million. During the audit period, the District paid 751 claims totaling approximately $1.9 million.
Audit Summary
The Board did not properly audit all claims before payment. As a result, the District incurred unnecessary costs totaling approximately $9,700 and was exposed to an increased risk that improper, unsupported or unauthorized expenditures could be paid. We reviewed 137 claims totaling approximately $367,000 and determined that 115 claims totaling approximately $357,000 (84 percent of the claims reviewed, and 97 percent of dollars examined) did not have sufficient documentation to support a proper audit and should not have been approved and paid for, for various reasons, including:
- No Board approval or authorization to pay.
- No competitive procurement.
- No evidence that the goods or services were received.
- No documentation to determine what was purchased.
- Noncompliance with the District’s policies.
Therefore, the District may have incurred unnecessary costs,1 and residents may have paid more than necessary for the District’s goods and services. Although the Board did not have the information needed to determine that charges were for proper District purposes when it approved the claims for payment, we determined that all 137 claims were for appropriate District purposes, excluding the excessive per diem payments.2
The report includes four recommendations that, if implemented, will strengthen the District’s claims audit process and improve accountability over District expenditures. Although District officials generally agreed with our recommendations and indicated they planned to take corrective action, they disagreed with certain aspects of our findings. Appendix C includes our comments on issues raised in the District’s response.
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. 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 (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.
1 Which included approximately $9,700 in excessive lodging and per diem expenses.
2 We made this determination by requesting and reviewing additional documentation and having discussions with officials.