A Delaware Fire Company Claimed $100,000. It Lost Money.

Marydel Volunteer Fire Company, which serves a stretch of Kent County, Delaware and Caroline County, Maryland, told its 92 members in December 2022 that its bar and hall rentals had cleared more than $100,000 in revenue⧉.▸ An investigation by Delaware's Office of Auditor of Accounts⧉ found that claim was wrong: the company's own CPA-prepared financial statements show those same activities produced a $28,478 loss in 2023 and a $16,195 loss in 2022. Of ten allegations the state investigated, three were substantiated outright and one partially -- covering the fundraising claim, credit-card controls, and travel spending -- while auditors could not confirm or rule out five others, including whether cash was withheld from poker and cornhole tournaments, and found one, about a $300,000 capital grant, did not hold up at all.

At a December 7, 2022 board meeting, MDVFC's president told members that bar and hall rentals had generated over $100,000 in revenue⧉ -- but no evidence shows that income was ever deposited into the company's accounts, and when a member asked directly about it at the April 5, 2023 meeting, the president gave no answer.▸ Auditors then went to the company's compiled financial statements directly. The real numbers: a $47,685 gain in 2021, followed by a $16,195 loss in 2022 and a $28,478 loss in 2023⧉ -- the two years closest to the president's claim were the two years the line item actually lost money. Because event costs were paid partly from a Ways and Means account that didn't hold enough to cover them, auditors concluded State of Delaware and Kent County funds were used to subsidize the shortfall⧉.

The company's overall books still showed a surplus each year -- $199,866 in 2023, $77,943 in 2022, $13,645 in 2021 -- but that surplus depended on government money, not on the fundraising the president described as thriving: Government Support accounted for 80% of 2023 income, 76% of 2022, and 83% of 2021, according to the same compiled financial statements⧉.▸ The part of the operation the president told members was booming was, in fact, a drag on the budget in two of the three years investigators reviewed.

MDVFC's own bylaws require two officers -- drawn from the Treasurer, Assistant Treasurer, President, Vice President, or Fire Chief -- to approve every credit-card expenditure⧉.▸ Auditors found that rule was never enforced. Of 1,289 total transactions across the company's four TD Bank accounts, 526 -- 41% of all activity -- ran through the president's own card⧉, with no required second signoff and no documented business purpose for most of it. Board minutes from October 2023 confirmed the president had also let the company secretary -- who wasn't an authorized signer on any account -- use that same card; the secretary's name turned up on every Sam's Club purchase the card recorded.

Among the purchases auditors flagged as personal: Six Flags tickets for the president's own family, and fuel and alcohol charged at a Maryland gas station with no business-purpose documentation⧉.▸ A separate Walmart store card tied to the account is reloaded with $2,000 every year⧉ and, per the company's own records, spent on clothing and gift cards at retailers around the country.

MDVFC hosted cash-basis poker and cornhole tournaments in its hall, tracking the activity on loose-leaf paper rather than in the books.▸ Auditors could not account for a $10,051 net deficit between $10,361 withdrawn to fund the games and only $350 in recorded deposits⧉ -- separately, $10,231 in cash was pulled from the company's main, Ways and Means, and restricted Ambulance accounts in the first half of 2023 alone to "fill" a poker bag. An on-site ATM the company operated to support the cash events had its own gap: $1,700 loaded into the machine could not be traced to any deposit⧉, and its 2021 service contract had been signed by someone with no authority to sign for the company, who shared the machine's reporting credentials only with the president.

The poker games themselves turned out to be illegal: Delaware requires a license, a six-hour limit, and at least 70 days between tournaments; MDVFC had none of that, and state alcohol and tobacco enforcement officials shut the games down in October 2024⧉.▸ A cornhole-tournament charity claim didn't check out either -- the president said proceeds went to a Maryland Lions Club, but that club's own treasurer told auditors it had never received a donation from MDVFC.

At the fire company's annual Ocean City, Maryland convention, total spending exceeded federal per-diem travel rates by $22,907.60 in 2022 and $18,467.65 in 2023⧉, with two hotel rooms booked under the president's name and cash travel allowances handed to attendees who weren't MDVFC members.▸ Auditors couldn't cleanly separate personal from legitimate spending -- other members attended the same dinners -- but they did confirm four checks totaling $600 went to the president's non-member relatives in 2022⧉. A separate review of $13,067.86 in gift-card purchases from 2021-2023 found board-approved purchases but no distribution logs showing who ever received a card.

Not every allegation held up.▸ One complaint claimed no one was tracking a $300,000 capital-improvement grant MDVFC received in July 2021 -- auditors found that one unsubstantiated: the company had set up a separate corporation specifically to oversee the grant, and its books showed all $625,000 in state capital funding, including the 2021 grant, went to its intended purpose⧉.

This isn't the first time the state flagged MDVFC.▸ A 2014 AOA inspection found the same kind of problem -- no written policies, weak internal controls, one member's excessive spending -- and the report notes no corrective action followed from the public, legislators, fire commissioners, or county officials⧉. Part of the reason: Delaware currently only requires volunteer fire companies to obtain a minimum "Review"-level report each year -- a lower bar than a full audit, which requires an accountant to test internal controls and assess fraud risk rather than simply flag no obvious problems⧉.

The report recommends the State Fire Commission require full independent audits statewide, and recommends the state's Grant-in-Aid office suspend funding to noncompliant fire companies until they restore basic fiscal controls⧉ -- a step the report notes MDVFC has never faced despite a decade of documented warnings.▸ "The abuse of State and County resources at MDVFC directly took money away from its intended purpose of saving lives,"⧉ State Auditor Lydia York said in announcing the report.