The administration and board of commissioners of the Lehigh Acres Fire Control & Rescue District today are digesting information just released from an annual audit for the year ending Sept. 30 as required by law. The audit by Tuscan & Company is an independent auditor’s report and according to figures presented in the comprehensive study, the Lehigh Fire Dept. will run out of money if operations continue as usual for the fiscal years 2014-2015.

“That’s when the fund balances goes negative,” Jeff Tuscan told the Board of Commissioners and administration staff at it recent meeting in March.

Tuscan spent nearly an hour explaining the 47-page audit along with another 12 pages of charts showing the financial condition of the fire department.

In a chart included with the audit, it was projected that by Sept. 30, a fund balance of $11,793,585 would see a loss of $1.3 million showing a decrease in revenue of 10 percent. Each year from 2012 to 2015, the decreases are noted with a 334 percent loss by the fiscal year beginning Sept. 30, 2015.

Those numbers are assuming there are no changes and things continue as they are, Tuscan said.

Commissioner Kevin Shea has been telling the board that even before he was voted in at the last election.

He said afterwards that unless there are changes in revenue coming into the department or that if there are not drastic cuts, the fire department is facing bankruptcy.

The audit was accepted by the board, but not before listening to projects made by the auditing firm.

Shea had asked at the beginning of the meeting that a resolution declaring the department in a financial emergency be taken off the agenda until a future meeting.

In other action, Chief Adams asked the board for their approval to reestablish the title of Assistant Chief and Fire Marshal.

The board questioned the move, but Adams reminded them that he was the chief of the agency and it was his job to promote within the department. He also told them that the position had existed before and a previous board had agreed with him to postpone promotion to it.

The chief said that with promoting Fire Marshal Ken Bennett to Assistant Chief while still doing his duties as fire marshal would mean a raise to $93,000 a year and a car to take home so it could be at all hours of the day and night when he had to report to a fire to probe its origin. The board went along with the chief’s proposal.

No action was taken on a request from commissioners at a prior meeting to update the fire department’s website. Adams told commissioners that Genesis Global Technologies would charge $117 an hour work the work. Commissioner Linda Carter offered to look into the matter and said she was familiar with putting up website and helping to administer them. She added that the site had to be user friendly to the public.

At the end of the meeting, Cathy Kruse of Lehigh Acres, echoed Carter’s thoughts by pointing out that the public needs to be given more information by the fire department. She said the website would be an ideal way to explain what work is being done at the department, to discuss ad valorem taxes and other financial matters.

“We must educate the public on how ad valorem work for them,” she told commissioners.

“It’s a disservice not to educate them,” she said, noting that the SAFER grant which brought the department $8.9 million last year making it possible to rehire laid off firefighters may have “bought you some time.”

The funds for that SAFER grant run out in August of 2012 and whether or now the department receives another such grant are unknown although an application will be made for another grant, the chief has said.

The audit by Tuscan & Company is available at the fire department on Thomas Sherwin Ave and Milwaukee Blvd. for the public.

The chief told commissioners that the Tice Fire Department received a SAFER grant and the Lehigh department is losing a few firefighters to them. Some four firefighters had left the department already, he said.