LWFR hires consulting firm after discovering financial, administrative issues

LAKE WENATCHEE —  Lake Wenatchee Fire and Rescue (LWFR) is paying a consulting firm to review and rebuild the district’s administrative and financial processes, raising public concerns over spending, oversight and transparency.

“In my eyes, something serious has happened here. We've lost oversight of our dollars, we've lost oversight of our people and our time, and it puts everybody in this room, including myself, who pay taxes at risk. That's not satisfactory. So we brought a third-party vendor in,” said Commissioner Chair Mick Lamar.

Lamar said problems in the fire district started to appear last fall following the Chelan County Superior Court decision to overturn the $15 million bond election due to violations of the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA). The court found that the district failed to post meeting sufficiently detailed agendas and minutes in a timely manner.

According to Lamar, the board decided to do a top to bottom review of the district before reintroducing the bond, which led to the discovery of financial mismanagement and administrative deficiencies. Following personnel changes this spring, even more revelations were made.

“We had accounts that were past due, overdue, and we had disconnect notices,” said Lamar.

In March, the fire district brought on consulting firm Metis Global Solutions to help with identifying, reviewing and revising existing documentation processes. However, the scope was increased after the realization that most documents and procedures did not exist, said Metis owner Tatiana Weiss.

“The contract is not tied to deliverables, because to be completely honest, every time we open a file, it slaps everybody in the face with improper information and improper data,” said Weiss.

The district landed on an $189,000, 90-day contract with Metis to design and implement a more cost efficient workflow in administration, communication, equipment handling, facilities maintenance, financial tracking, health and safety, staff and volunteers, and technology. While scope has increased since, Weiss said the price would not be increased beyond $189,000. Instead, Metis would volunteer hours to help with the additional tasks.

According to Lamar, the district had unpaid bills, maxed-out credit cards and hundreds of thousands of dollars in unclaimed reimbursements. Lamar listed additional red flags, such as onboarding lapses and liability concerns, unapproved benefits to part-time employees, and no supervision over allocated hours.

“We have the money to pay our bills,” said Lamar. “What I am not trusting is how it's accounted for, and the processes that are used.”

Files were missing or scattered, policies were incomplete or outdated, excessive emails were unanswered, and approved resolutions, procedures and meeting minutes were missing, according to the district. Appropriate financial reporting was also lacking, including proof of payments processes for Amazon purchases, said Lamar.

“It was like turning a stone over and finding more stones, each one requiring more attention, more time,” said Lamar.

When the district announced its work with Metis, the  contract became a flashpoint of public concern over transparency, spending and oversight. During a public meeting on May 20, residents expressed frustration over the commissioner’s trust of the staff without ever verifying.

“I don't know how you can expect me or anybody else to have confidence in the commissioners’ vote at this point,” said Bill Burgess. “I'm not sure you guys are the ones to fix it.”

Others questioned why the district didn’t do a formal request for proposals, which would have collected bids from multiple consultants. Residents also questioned Metis’s lack of digital presence while highlighting the conflict of interest due to Lamar’s daughter being a Metis consultant. While Lamar said he recused himself from the vote, residents pushed that there was still a power dynamic present.

“I don't know how you knew that this was the best agency with the skill set to address the issues, because a lot of the issues here seem to be internal control issues to me,” said another resident.

The commissioners acknowledged the need for transparency moving forward, but stood by Metis’s pricepoint and commitment. The district also put a call out for additional help from the community.

“This is a heavy lift, and in this heavy lift, we still are fixing to come up on fire season,” said Lamar.

Taylor Caldwell: 509-433-7276 or taylor@ward.media