By Jeff Adelson
The Times-Picayune
ST. TAMMANY, La. — The Slidell-area fire department will stop selling so-called “Katrina bells” after a state audit chastised the department for lax procedures governing cash transactions, officials said Tuesday.
The June 10 report noted that St. Tammany’s 1st Fire Protection District, which raised about $18,000 from selling the bells between 2006 and 2008, could not account for $3,000 worth of memorial bells. But an official with the state legislative auditor’s office said the issue appears to be a case of bad record-keeping rather than theft.
“They don’t handle cash routinely,” said Dan Daigle, director of compliance audits for the office. “On one hand, it wasn’t surprising that they had some problems, but at the same time they have sufficient resources to do it right.”
The audit and officials with the 1st Fire Protection District said the $3,000 discrepancy may have been the result of bells that were broken, discarded or sold for less than their regular $3 price.
The audit in St. Tammany comes as funds raised using Katrina bells in Jefferson Parish face heavy scrutiny. Officials have raised questions about $57,000 collected by fire stations in East Jefferson that were kept in a private account for years and not distributed to needy firefighters as intended, according to parish officials.
The state legislative auditor began looking into the bell sales in East Jefferson after being contacted by the Metropolitan Crime Commission. While those inquiries are ongoing, they have prompted an attorney for the firefighters union to hand over almost $18,000 in cash that was collected during the fund drives but never turned in. In addition, a charity based in New York has reclaimed a $50,000 donation it made to the fund in 2005.
Fire departments throughout southeastern Louisiana began selling the bells, sponsored by WWL-TV, as part of a fundraising effort for a variety of causes after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. After Hurricane Katrina, the donation drive was renamed from the “9/11 fund.”
Each bell sold netted the Slidell-area department about $1.50, with the money spent on equipment and other needs, Fire Chief Larry Hess said. The bells were sold out of fire stations in and around Slidell, and firefighters did not keep careful records of their sales, he said.
The bells were not tracked in the department’s inventory system, which only monitors items worth $5,000 or more. Hess said he believes many of the bells were simply thrown out as they aged or broke.
The audit recommends that the department improve its record-keeping for cash transactions and make daily deposits to ensure that money is going to its intended use.
In order to improve record-keeping, Hess said, all fundraisers that involve cash and are sponsored by the district will have to be run out of the main headquarters. Detailed records will be kept, and all cash will be deposited at the end of each day, he said.
However, because of the additional effort that will entail, Hess said, he does not anticipate that the district will participate in future Katrina bell sales or similar donation drives.
“I’m not sure the effort versus benefit necessarily exists, but we’ll have to look at that on a case-by-case basis,” he said.
Firefighters will still be able to collect money at stations for charity drives organized by their association or by individual members of the department, Hess said.
The department was the only north shore agency to be audited in connection with the bell sales.
Metropolitan Crime Commission Vice President Anthony Radosti said his organization was “more interested in corrective action than anything else,” to ensure that funds were properly accounted for in the future. Radosti said he hoped the audits will encourage such accounting but not dissuade departments from holding fundraisers.
“These Katrina bells were designed as a tragedy fund; whether we want to admit it or not, every department will experience a tragedy at some point in time,” he said.
Copyright 2009 The Times-Picayune Publishing Company