ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 16, 1996 TAG: 9601160063
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: S.D. HARRINGTON STAFF WRITER
Salem Rescue Squad members say they hope to decide by next month how to handle a city-funded audit that found more than $12,000 in undocumented squad transactions.
The squad discussed the matter Monday night for the first time as a group since the audit report was completed nearly two weeks ago.
In a letter to the squad's former chief, John Beach, City Manager Randy Smith suggested that if the squad could not resolve the problems, it turn over the audit for a state police investigation.
The approximately 60-member squad voted to have its nine elected officers make that decision.
"We need to review it in depth," said Mike Moore, the newly elected squad chief.
He said the squad is still working with its bank to come up with answers to some of the 20 transactions that were listed in the report as undocumented.
"Some of those may be legitimate," Moore said. "We think they are. We know they are."
For example, a check that was written to Paramount's Carowinds theme park in Charlotte, N.C., was listed on the audit report as having no supporting documentation. But Moore said he remembers the squad taking a trip to Carowinds.
"The members paid up front," he said.
The squad will also try to find documentation to prove that a check from the state was deposited in squad accounts.
The 1992 check from the Department of Health's Office of Emergency Medical Services was to pay for a display board.
"We've got a display board," Moore said. "We've got it in hand."
The rescue squad asked Salem City Council in March to pay for the audit after former squad chief and former City Councilman Garry Lautenschlager was investigated for taking money from the squad's Wiley Fund.
Lautenschlager was convicted in July of taking more than $20,000 from the fund during a three-year period that included his first seven months on City Council.
Lautenschlager is scheduled to be sentenced today in Salem Circuit Court.
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