Theft By Firefighters From Volunteer Fire Departments
This video is about a recent theft that occurred in the Cattaraugus, New York Fire Department. While we like to think that such conduct is rare – it is occurring frequently enough that all volunteer fire departments need to take some precautions. Consider the following cases:
- Already this year, Jack Micah Feltner, the treasurer of the Oak Hill Volunteer Department in West Virginia was charged with stealing more than $375,000 in payments from the city of Oak Hill intended for volunteer firefighters.
- Also this year Henry Swincinski of the Windber, PA Fire Department was charged with stealing more than $284,000 from the department
- In 2009, James M. Reid, was charged with fraud and theft from his department while he was Huntertown, Indiana volunteer fire chief
- In 2009, Kyle Cornell a firefighter with Graham Fire Rescue in Texas was charged with stealing from the fire rescue auxiliary
- In 2009, Paul Breton of the Island Falls Fire Department in Maine was charged with theft of $10,000 in town funds by submitted for reimbursement of personal expenses claiming they were fire department expenses
- In 2009, Michael Mantle Gorr of the Fogelsville Fire Company in PA was charged with stealing gasoline for his personal use while filling the fire truck with diesel from the municipal pumps
- In 2009 Chris Bartlett was charged with stealing from the Warrenton Fire Department, in Oregon
- In 2007, Howard J. O'Brien, the Evans Mills Fire chief was accused of stealing from the fire company
- In 2007, Peter Stefan, 60 was charged with stealing money from the Hope Volunteer Fire Department
- In 2007, John Carbone was charged with embezzling $38,000 from the North Bellmore Fire District
There are many more cases – I won’t belabor the point.
Cattaraugus County District Attorney Lori Rieman stopped short of a solid recommendation when she said "it does seem to be getting more common and I'm not sure whether that's the economy or gambling or both, but unfortunately these volunteer organizations, it's hard because you don't know if somebody has a history of that and it's hard to find people that are willing to do it."
Part of the solution is a system of internal checks and balances in each fire company to prevent one or two people from having unfettered access to the organization's funds. Regular outside audits by a professional auditor are another important step.
Finally – and this one may be the most painful – everyone in the organization should be subject to a thorough background check at regular intervals. Many times the people who steal from a volunteer fire department, have in the past stolen from other organizations. If they will steal from the fire department, they will steal from their brother and sister firefighters, and they will steal from the people we are there to protect. They need to be removed from our organizations. We don’t need any more black eyes!
Agree on the pre-screening of employees. We are in an environment of opportunity. We go into people’s homes; we keep our lockers open; we leave our gear bags unattended and in general we trust each other as we should – both on the fire ground and in the fire station. There are too many stories of firefighters, fire departments and citizens getting ripped off by firefighters. A good background screening, checking references, looking at credit history under FERCA and doing a psychological test of candidate firefighters will weed out many if not most of the bad actors. This applies to volunteer AND career fire departments. Occasionally, one slips through the crack and quite possibly it’s a crime of opportunity. We have been entrusted with the duty and obligation to hold ourselves and our profession to the highest standards. One false step; one misplaced intention; one thought that you can get away with it this one time and you get caught damages our hard earned reputation ofhonesty and integrity. I believe that those offenders should be “perp walked” out of the fire station and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The fire chief and fire officers have an extra duty of keeping an eye on the “troops” to reward good behavior and to discipline the bad. 98% of us are honest; it’s the 2% that give us this black eye. We should have an honor code and not a code of institutional silence. Report bad behavior as you all know it’s going on.
Thanks John
I received a couple of inquiries about internal financial controls to help protect an organization from this type of occurrence. Since every organization is structured differently – it is hard to paint with a broad brush, except to say that safe guards are needed to prevent any one person (or even two people) from having the ability to spend money without having to account in a very detailed way to a third party, or the entire organization.
Some people simply cannot withstand the temptation of easy money, and can even rationalize that they have earned it, or somehow deserve it.
The very existence of strong internal safeguards can prevent such an individual from even trying to use/borrow/steal the organization’s funds – because they know they will be caught. Auditors are quite good at setting up systems to prevent such theft. Attorneys will usually defer to auditors when it comes to recommending procedures – but it comes down to each organization realizing there is a potential for mischief, and taking steps to ensure accountability.
Background checks must be mandatory! You owe it to yourself, community and department. The background check must be more than just checking a driving and criminal history.
Our employees are allowed unattended into our homes aswell as with patients.
We are always looking for other methods however currently we hire a private investigation firm to do a background check, besides our facebook, myspace, school records, credit, driving, criminal, etc.
We only want trusted and ethical employees, however if a bad nut slips through we can at least show that we made an honest effort.
thanks for the information so important!
good blog!!
It’s a shame about today’s volunteer organizations. Since I took over as President in January 2009, I had enacted that at least 2 people (or more) count and sign for all funds. This not only protects the Treasurer, it is a solid accountability.
Also, I have accountability on all raffle tickets. They are signed out to members by each number and when they turn them back in, any money is accounted for by 2 members and signed off on if money equals the amount of tickets.
We had a case we turned over to the West Virginia State Police. They said there was 2 felonies and turned it over to the Prosecutor. The Prosecutor claimed there was to many loop holes, but we knew why he would prosecute. (this was a personal reason dealing with our fire dept and the person that was to be prosecuted).
Tanya L. See
Maysville Volunteer Fire Company
Jack Micah Feltner is my uncle. He was wrongly charged with these crimes. If you were from here you would understand how slimey city officials can be. Please try to understand that more goes on than just whats in the news and that these are people not statistics. Thanks
Jacob, he was not wrongly charged. All the evidence was there, and he was charged and sent away. He was a dirty cop, and a theif. I mean look, his girlfriend was just charged with Felony Embezzlement on 10/23/2012 from her former employer. They were living together, and we all know she was part of the fire dept thft as well. I know he is your uncle, but come on!