By Valerie Gordon
The Flanders Northampton Volunteer Ambulance Corps was the first of four ambulance districts overseen by the Southampton Town Board to submit to an external audit focusing on the district’s retirement program.
Southampton Town Comptroller Leonard Marchese explained on Monday that his office hired Gentile Pismeny and Brengel, a business consulting firm in Garden City, in August to perform the external audits of each of the districts’ Length of Service Award Program—or LOSAP. The program, which acts as a pension for volunteers, awards points to emergency volunteers based on activities such as training, sleep-ins, serving as an elected or appointed position, and teaching prevention classes.
Mr. Marchese said each audit is expected to cost $10,000 and will be funded with the appropriate district’s unappropriated fund balance.
Opposed to his original plan in April to conduct two ambulance audits per year, Mr. Marchese said that the auditors will complete one initial audit and assess the results. If the practice seems beneficial, the town will move forward with auditing the three remaining districts, which include the Hampton Bays Volunteer…
