TheBurg

for the volunteers and the city," he said. He invoked charities like the Red Cross, too, to explain why he isn't overly concerned about the association's overhead. "You hear about CEOs making lots of money," he said. "I don't care what they're making. We have a good relationship with the Red Cross." e fire bureau's "good relationship" with the HFRA is symbiotic: the association supports the 25 or so volunteers who ride with the city's paid firefighters on emergency calls, while the volunteers get valuable experience and training working at an urban fire department. "We're the busiest and best show in town," Enterline said, noting that most volunteers who come to Harrisburg see it as a stepping stone to a firefighting career. What the relief association's officers are making doesn't concern him, as long as the mutual support continues. "I gotta put the blinders on to that," he said. "My focus is on where we are, and how do we make our combination department the best it can be." I n 2006, Casey's successor, Jack Wagner, released an audit of the HFRA that repeated many of his predecessor's findings. Noting that the association's state aid had been withheld for noncompliance for the past five years, Wagner urged the board to "give strong consideration" to ways they could use their resources "in the best interests of the citizens of the city of Harrisburg." "While state law does not allow the funds to be simply turned over to the city," he went on, "association management should consider how it can take some of the burden off the city budget by maximizing the authorized use of association funds." e audit did not offer examples, aside from suggesting the HFRA might invest in city-issued bonds. It urged the board to explore its options with its "legal and financial advisors." e strict rules governing relief fund expenses can be a source of frustration for the board. Determining what is and isn't a permissible expense can take hours of research, and even then, the association may still be in doubt about a purchase's legality. Hoyer told me the story of a "finding" in an audit of the association released in 2013, which claimed that the HFRA had made an unauthorized expense of $45,000. e money had paid for the development of a website for the Pennsylvania Fire and Emergency Services Institute, the organization that rents office space out of the HFRA's building on State Street. e auditors called it an "unauthorized and undocumented expenditure," resulting from a "lack of due diligence" by the board. In its response, the board noted that, before approving the expense, it had sought input from the state Department of Community and Economic Development. Because the auditor general is forbidden from giving pre-audit advice, DCED keeps a database of allowed expenses and occasionally advises relief associations on what they can buy. According to the audit, DCED gave a qualified nod of approval on the website purchase: "As you describe how you wish to develop and operate the web site, I would say you may spend VFRA funds on it but I would remain very interested to see it demonstrated." Nonetheless, the auditors maintained the expense was inappropriate and urged the HFRA to seek reimbursement. Hoyer's point was not so much that the expense had been justified, but that the effort spent reviewing it had done more harm than good. e legal fees for dealing with the audit of the website expenditure alone, he said, cost $75,000. "at's the kind of stuff that upsets me," he said. "We'd gotten that expense approved. at's what most frustrates me about the volunteer fire service." (A DCED spokesman told me that any "information or guidance" provided by his department is "solely informal guidance and does not have any binding authority.") Episodes like this show the extent to which the HFRA is a historical curiosity: it has the resources of a large charity, but it's governed by rules created with a much narrower purpose in mind. is helps to explain its relationship with the city, which seems satisfied with the level of support it's getting from the HFRA—more than it's ever gotten before, and perhaps as much as can be expected under current law. Certainly, with assets in excess of $16 million, the association has more than enough funds to pay "for the relief, support and burial" of its members. But what "other beneficial and charitable purposes" it should be financing has been a subject of negotiation for some time. Chief Enterline told me one story about a meeting he had with Henry Young, the former HFRA president. It took place in the late 1990s, when Enterline was a young volunteer. e city had bought new air packs, but only for its paid firefighters. Enterline decided to ask Young if the relief association would pay for more air packs for the volunteers. "He was a very staunch guy. Very direct in his thinking," Enterline recalled. "And he wasn't swayed very easily." ey met and talked for two hours. In the end, Young agreed to buy the packs, provided Enterline could get a letter from the city's fire chief promising to pay the cost back if the purchase turned out not to be permitted under state law. "I still have that letter, and we still have those air packs today," Enterline said. "And the relationship has only blossomed from there."

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