Auditor General DePasquale Provides Financial Management Educational Video for Volunteer Firefighters’ Relief Associations
Auditor General DePasquale Provides Financial Management Educational Video for Volunteer Firefighters’ Relief Associations
HARRISBURG (Sept. 17, 2015) – Auditor General Eugene DePasquale today said his department provided the commonwealth’s nearly 2,000 volunteer firefighters’ relief associations with an educational video to help them better manage records and improve their members’ understanding of the department’s audit process.
“We all owe a debt of gratitude to the men and women who selflessly help protect our communities,” DePasquale said. “We developed this training video to share our expertise so volunteer firefighting associations improve accountability over their finances and, in turn, ensure that our communities continue to receive the life- and property-saving services that these volunteers provide. In the process of creating the VFRA video we realized that similar principals can be applied to other community volunteer groups.
“We are developing a similar presentation for use by other community volunteer groups, including band and youth sports booster clubs, small civic organizations and other non-profits,” he said, noting that the educational resource for community non-profits will be available later this fall.
The topics of the 20-minute VFRA educational video include: best practices for financial record-keeping, protecting assets, managing expenditures and investments, common audit findings, maintaining ledgers and websites for additional information. The video is available online here.
The Department of the Auditor General audits volunteer firefighters’ relief associations, which receive state aid from a 2 percent state tax on foreign fire insurance premiums purchased by Pennsylvania residents from out-of-state casualty insurance companies.
In 2014, $68.25 million in state funds were distributed through funding municipalities to nearly 1,950 VFRAs to provide training, purchase equipment and insurance, and pay for death benefits for volunteer firefighters.
The audit reports for VFRAs are available online at: www.PaAuditor.gov/audit-reports.
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