An audit released on Dec. 24 by the New York State comptroller's office has criticized the Montauk Fire District for what it called a lack of oversight in several key areas.
According to the audit, the district failed to file three years' worth of required financial reports, paid out unauthorized longevity and overtime to employees, and lacked oversight and consistency in administering its length-of-service award program (LOSAP) for Montauk's 131 volunteer firefighters and emergency medical technicians.
The district has responded to most of the audit's findings by taking steps to correct the errors, but it has also disputed the state's claim that its LOSAP policies are not in alignment with state law.
"This was the first audit that we've had in some 40-odd years," Richard Schoen, chairman of the Montauk Board of Fire Commissioners, said by phone on Thursday morning. "I'm not unhappy at all with what they found, because it's the right way to do things. . . . Some of it was shocking to the board members that certain things had not been done. Things got lost in the cracks, but moving forward, all of the issues, if they haven't already been addressed, will be within the next 90 days."
The comptroller's office examined the fire district for more than a year, from Jan. 1, 2023, through March 31, 2024, and ultimately extended its review back to Jan. 1, 2020, and up to July 31, 2024.
In a summary, the comptroller's office wrote that "the board did not adequately monitor financial activities or ensure that appropriate records and reports were maintained and audited to comply with statutory requirements. As a result, the board diminished the district's transparency and its ability to assess the district's financial operations."
Among its specific findings: The district's secretary and treasurer failed to file the state's required annual reports in 2021, 2022, and 2023; the 2020 report, the audit found, had been filed about three years late.
Citing issues with the district's accounting firm, Mr. Schoen called it "purely a Covid bookkeeping error that we have since totally corrected." He also said the district hired a new treasurer "who has more experience and is actively dealing with the last three years' financial reporting, so that is well underway."
The audit also found that about $25,000 in overtime and longevity payments were made without approval by the board of fire commissioners.
"It came as a shock to all of us when we discovered this," Mr. Schoen said.
The commissioners took "corrective action" at its meeting in December, he said, including setting "qualifications for permitting overtime that have to be undertaken before it is approved." The commissioners also established a new longevity payment policy.
"We were in agreement that longevity bonuses were acceptable to the board . . . so we reestablished them in a different format moving forward," Mr. Schoen said. "While errors were made back then that I can't quite frankly account for, all we can do is move forward at this point."
The audit also found evidence that the LOSAP benefit had been inconsistently administered in Montauk.
The benefit program uses a "points" system, according to the comptroller's office, to offer "pension-like" financial awards to volunteers "based on the number of years they have served as an active volunteer. In general, upon reaching entitlement age, program participants receive a monthly monetary benefit for each qualified year of service, up to a maximum of 50 years."
The comptroller's office stated that while the fire district did maintain LOSAP records appropriately, the district "did not offer the correct number of points for participation in department responses to fire calls and emergency rescue and ambulance calls." The minimum and maximum numbers of points earned by responding to calls and participating in training differed from state law, the comptroller's office said. It also claimed that points were awarded to volunteers for "certain activities [that] appeared to be questionable, including undefined computer activities, the gym committee, and hanging Christmas lights."
In their response letter to the comptroller's office, the Montauk fire commissioners indicated that they had an attorney review how the district's policy stacks up against state law. The commissioners wrote that they "believe that our process is fair and consistent with the intention of the statute. The board feels we are in compliance with General Municipal Law regarding LOSAP. We will consider adjustments in 2025."
