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Internal Audit Finds Volunteer Firefighters Overpaid $39,500
December 13, 2007
An internal audit of the county’s volunteer fire departments was accepted this morning at a special called meeting of the Escambia County Commission.
The audit find thats volunteer firefighters were overpaid $39,500 during the six months from October 2006 to February 2007, with one third of that money going to firefighters in North Escambia. An audit conducted by the volunteer fire departments found $24,575 in overpayments county-wide.
Assistant County Administrator Willie Taylor told the commission that the $14,925 difference between the county’s audit and the volunteer firefighters’ own audit was due to some documentation coming in late or not being accepted by the county’s auditors due to a lack of supporting documentation.
“The volunteer association has said that they accept, or that they acknowledge that $24, 575 is the ceiling,” Taylor said. “They owe that amount.”
“We all agree that there will be a further time that we can discuss this issue,” he said. “The purpose of filing today is just to say that the report has been done.”
The Century Volunteer Fire Department (Station 5) had the highest stipend overpayment in the report, with $7,925 in overpayments. The Molino Volunteer Fire Department (Station 18) overpaid its volunteers $3,275, according the report. Overpayments at the McDavid Volunteer Fire Department (Station 9) totaled $1,570, and overpayments at the Walnut Hill Volunteer Fire Department (Station 15) totaled $705, the report says.
An internal audit complete in June had found $52,045 in overpayments, but that figure was revised in this latest audit that was completed in September to the $39,500 adopted today by the commission.
The original audit was revised after submission of about 300 additional documents by all of the volunteer fire departments in the county.
“It has taken an unreasonable length of time, and at excess cost to the County, to perform and complete this audit. This underscores the importance of the finding included in our original report related to the fact that the Volunteer Fire Departments currently have inadequate or insufficient policies and procedures for documenting and retaining training and certification records on volunteer firefighters,” the report states.
The audit reports that better record keeping requirements be put into place, and the stipend payment scale be simplified.
The overpayments included all volunteer departments in the county, not just the departments in North Escambia mentioned in this article. Amounts ranged from the $7,925 at the Century Volunteer Fire Department to $10 at the Brent Volunteer Fire Department.
The original audit in June found the $7,925 in overpayments in Century, while the volunteer’s audit found $2,000 in excess payments.
The June audit found $5,135 in excess payments in Molino, with the volunteer’s audit finding $2,415. Tonight’s report indicates $3,275.
The June audit indicated McDavid overpaid its volunteers $2,615, and the volunteer audit said $1,195. The final audit says the amount is $1,570.
June’s audit found $3,055 in overpayments at Walnut Hill, and the volunteer’s report found $720. The June audit was drastically revised to $705 in the final report.
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