South King Fire reports clean state audit

Published 2:34 pm Tuesday, November 1, 2011

From staff reports:

South King Fire and Rescue reports that the fire district just completed its exit interview with the Washington State Auditor’s office and that the report “does not include any findings,” as noted directly from the exit conference.

The required audit is part of a regular annual review of the department’s financial practices and finances conducted by the Washington State Auditor’s Office.

The state budgeted 128 hours of staff time for the audit, which the district pays for out of its general budget. The cost of this audit was $10,855. This year, however, some of the budgeted hours were spent investigating four separate citizen hotline complaints. The audit concluded that “the district was not in violation of any applicable RCW’s, BARS guidance, or other authoritative sources” in any of the areas the auditors examined. The audit found the complaints to be totally unsubstantiated and unfortunately detracted from time that could have been spent reviewing compliance in other areas.