Am I out of line??

[wcuemgt]

Thanks for the help.

[Dashman]

Was the money for the training approved by the fd? If it was no problem
summit your bills.
If you did it on your own,You might end up eatting the cost of everything
unless you bring your case to the membership and they vote to pay for it.

[dmleblanc]

Seems to me that the first problem is that the Chief did not know until after the fact that you had used department money to pay for the room and board. Did you not have to get the Chief's approval for this trip? Or did you just take it upon yourself to authorize it? Unless there's some other circumstances at play that you're not sharing with us, I think you were way out of line.

You disregarded the chain of command in your department. You spent department money without approval for purposes for which it had not been authorized. This could easily be considered malfeasance. You also disrespected the authority of your Chief by not getting his approval before spending the money.

No fire chief wants to find out only when the bill comes in that one of his members took a trip on department funds, no matter how noble or important you happen to think the trip was. How do you get your hands on this money without either having the approval of the Chief or a board of directors or something?

since I am the one who pays the bills for the fire department, I had the department pay for my training and housing.

So what does that mean, since you have the checkbook you figured you'd just go ahead and cover it? Did you "have the department pay for my training" or did you just make that decision on your own?

I would expect that the department would want us to go to training and better ourselves!

You might expect that, and most of us might expect that, but what it boils down to is what your chief and your department want, not what you think they should want.

the chief, who isn't big on training and doesn't allot any money in our budget for it,

I don't know what your budget is, but maybe they just don't have the money to spend on overnight training trips. They have a budget and just because you pay the bills does not mean that you get to decide how the money is spent. Maybe your department is already strapped keeping diesel in the trucks and PPE on the firefighters. Your chief would know this better than you.

If any of my other guys ask me to go to training I would sign the check and send them no problem.

Again I reiterate, that's not your decision. The Chief has the right and the responsibility to decide who attends what training and how much he's willing to spend for it, not the secretary or treasurer or whatever your position is.

Methinks that some of the "resentment" you speak of has less to do with your age than with your having a tendency to overstep your authority...

[JayDudley]

dmlebanc..is correct. As a current Fire Commissioner I'd be on your butt if the Chief wasn't. The only thing to keep me from it is.....wait for it.................THE CHAIN OF COMMAND. You should have cleared it with the Chief before the fact not after. You need to foot the bill this time and next time.....if there is a next time you need to clear it with the Chief and not do it on your own.

[jam24u]

Damn wcuemgt! Just how young are you? I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but damn.
Look, I belong to a similar department as yours for 20 years and can advise you with one particular piece of advice. When anything in the department comes down to spending department funds, make absolutely sure to get approval. IN ADVANCE. Try to get as much documentation of that approval as you can too and also the scope of spending capabilities as clearly as possible.
Never try winging anything like this (absolutely) unless you get some experienced advice. Like this location to start. I would also start a relationship with your state fire marshals office,,, now. Tell them what your new officer positions are and you would like some advice and recommendations. This is called damage control and my suggestion is get it into hyper-drive to help make up for exceeding your limits. You will have to do some excellent work to cross out this hiccup. Just remember your not the first guy to get a girl pregnant and they can't eat you.

[jam24u]

When you take on or propose a project like this, the very first step to consider is, How are you or the department going to pay for this.(?) If your going take away from your bank account, think about how your going to return those funds back into the account as the very first thing to consider. If you have that all covered or a good portion of it covered, the commitment of the department is a lot easier to get.

'Perspective'. In retail buisness, if you want to buy something that the store is going to pay for, let's say a $1,000 bucks out of pocket. That means you must sell $5,000 worth of items at retail to be able to afford that $1,000 buck out of pocket expense. The same abstract can be applied here for a vol. fire department and your not even getting anything the department can touch so to speak.

Now did this really happen or is this just a flaming post to see what happens?LOL!

[Eng34FF]

Everybody else has pretty much summed it up, you were out of line. I have seen people kicked out of departments for less and even criminal charges brought.

There should be a process in the department so that the checks require more than 1 signature. We require the chief and the president to sign and the treasurer tracks what is being spent. In addition to making sure that you clear everything with the Chief and/or president before hand, you might want to suggest a similar procedure for signing checks. It will protect you from future problems as well.

[wcuemgt]

Thanks for everyone's thoughts.