- by Allison Ecklund ~ Larson Newspapers

Federal grant money assigned to improve services at the Sedona Fire District languishes in an SFD reserve account, exposing a lack of expertise in grant writing at the fire district.

Grant money can add faster, more up-to-date services to the district that taxpayers would otherwise have to pay for or wouldn’t receive at all. Recent findings of stalled projects, funded by grant money, shows a lack of sophistication, not scandal, SFD Business Director Karen Daines said.

“There is no suspicion of any district employee stealing money or spending it on their own,” Daines said, of $150,000 in the books for unfinished grant projects. “We unequivocally know that none of this money has gone into anyone’s pockets.”

Instead, the money, that should have gone to regional telecommunications projects, is in a reserve fund, she said, along with revenue from wild land and special project revenue.

But it begs the question: Why aren’t the projects complete?