Blount County, TN (WOKI) The Blount County Fire Protection District is on-the-hook for nearly $6,000 in missing funds, an investigation by the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office reveals.

According to investigators, employees of BCFPD failed to record or deposit a minimum of $5,785 in customer cash between January and November of 2023. The Comptroller’s Office says that employees collected the money from customers and issued pre-numbered receipts but didn’t deposit the money or record the transactions in the district’s accounting system.

In some instances, a customer’s annual charge was deleted from the system, investigators said. This means that those customers might not have received notices about delinquent payments and may have been left without fire coverage.

Investigators found that employees shared login credentials and a single cash drawer, making them unable to determine who was responsible for the missing cash.

“It’s essential that government offices handling cash collections implement strong safeguards and oversight,” said Tennessee Comptroller Jason Mumpower. “When multiple employees share login credentials and a single cash drawer, it becomes much harder to identify who is responsible when money goes missing.”