WINFIELD TWP — The Winfield Volunteer Fire Company is on track to mitigate the violations listed in a recent state audit.

In addition to one new finding, a state audit of the Winfield Volunteer Firefighters Relief Association shows that three findings from the previous audit have not been brought into compliance.

Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePas-quale recently released a statewide VFRA audit report that included findings for Winfield, which is the only VFRA in the county that did not pass the audit.

The term of the audit is from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 31, 2016.

The report also states that Winfield did not mitigate violations from last year's audit, including compliance on undocumented expenditures, failure to maintain minutes from meetings and the lack of accurate equipment or membership rosters.

The new finding is failure to maintain a complete and accurate membership roster.

Winfield VFRA receives state aid each year from a fire insurance tax. In 2016 the organization received $21,540.

The state aid goes into the VFRA fund and can be used for expenses like training, equipment, insurance, and death benefits for volunteer firefighters.

Susan Woods, the press secretary to the auditor general, said it is not unusual for VFRAs to receive repeat noncompliance notifications.

She said VFRAs are given time to bring their findings into compliance.

“At some point we do have the ability to withhold their state aid,” Woods said, “We withhold about a dozen per year.”

But she said the auditor general's office tries to work with the VFRAs to avoid withholding the vital funds.

“Volunteer fire services are so important to communities,” Woods said. “We want to make sure they continue to function.”

Regarding the Winfield findings, the report said the VFRA had $13,611 in expenditures to unknown vendors in the current audit, including payments of $8,940 and $3,700.

Winfield also had undocumented expenses in the last two audits dating back to Jan. 1, 2008.

Without the proper documentation like invoices, auditors are unable to determine whether expenditures are allowable under state requirements, the report stated.

But the report shows that Winfield provided documentation for $34,055 of the expenditures in question in the current and previous audits.

Winfield was also found to have an insufficient equipment roster in the last audit, and again in the current one.

The auditor again recommended that the VFRA maintain a list of all equipment owned by the association, and to conduct and document a physical inventory of all equipment each year.

The audit shows that the association did not maintain meeting minutes during the audit period, as required by law, in either the current or previous audit period.

The auditor said the association cannot show that relief association business was presented before the members for approval without a file of meeting minutes.

The finding that the association did not maintain a roster of members, the report said, could cause benefits to be paid to nonmembers or deprive eligible members of benefits they are entitled to.

The auditor recommended that a list be compiled and maintained, to which the association officials agreed.

Adam Hartwig, president of the Winfield Volunteer Fire Company as well as a fire captain, said the association is more than halfway there regarding compliance in all the audit findings.

“They are not difficult things to comply with,” Hartwig said.

He said the fire company has a need for professional individuals to join as business members and not firefighters to remain in compliance in the long term.

Hartwig also said the audit was impacted by a 2015 incident in which the former treasurer of the fire department, Jodie Undercuffler, was convicted of stealing $68,000 from the organization.

“We got stuck with trying to solve the problem,” Hartwig said of the theft's effect on the fire department's finances.

Hartwig said he is certain that Winfield will have no findings in the next audit in three years.

“There's no doubt in my mind we will have 100 percent compliance,” he said.