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It's good that the troubling development regarding an audit of the Pinecroft Volunteer Fire Company apparently has been put to rest.
The stated and voted-upon refusal that was at the center of the issue never should have occurred. Abiding by a promise made years ago should have precluded what occurred.
From the get-go, there was nothing wrong with that promise.
Back when the Pinecroft fire service promised to have its books audited every five years, the fire company was trying to recover from a theft involving company funds.
Fortunately, the crime was uncovered without having gotten much more serious; that is to say, involving much more money.
Regardless, an incident of that kind, however large or small, can have ramifications well into the future.
That has been Pinecroft's experience, no matter how small public erosion of confidence might have been initially and what might have carried over to following months or years.
From the standpoint of suspicion about what might be going on within the fire company, Pinecroft officials did not do the company any favor by opting to take a step backward - deciding not to have an audit carried out within the time frame promised.
Although company officials invoked the excuse that the delay would save money -- that might, in fact, be true but might not be - there would have been no grounds for suspicion by anyone if company officials, from the start, had announced "proceed with the audit to comply with our promise."
Instead, the decision to delay prompted the Antis Township supervisors to indicate that a semi-annual allotment of funding for Pinecroft would be withheld until the promised financial audit was delivered.
A promise is a promise. Without both sides agreeing that the audit could or should be delayed, the obligation on the part of the fire company remained in place and company officials should have been responsible enough to realize that.
It is true that the fire company had an arguing point created by the fact that Pinecroft and Bellwood's Excelsior Fire Department No. 1 are planning to merge and an audit covering both fire units might have produced some financial savings.
However, an agreement on that point should have been discussed before Pinecroft officials unilaterally opted for the audit delay.
Fortunately, in the end, the situation revolving around the audit was resolved by Pinecroft officials' correct decision to reverse the delay-the-audit decision. Now, the audit should be completed without delay and hopefully eliminate the possibility of any negative ramifications between the fire company and township government, going forward.
An article in the Mirror's Sept. 6-7 edition noted that, in the past, audit costs have stressed the fire company to the tune of more than $40,000, and that's a sizable sum for a fire company of Pinecroft's size. But there is another side to that fact - that that total covered the years 2018, 2019 and 2020, and there has not been another audit since then.
Presumably, the amount of money the township could have withheld indefinitely or permanently would be enough to pay for a new audit.
And there's another point to be made: The fire company merits praise for having paid down tens of thousands in debt, thus becoming more financially stable.
Nevertheless, the audit dispute, no matter how brief, should not have occurred.
Whether or not the Pinecroft-Excelsior merger materializes, the audit dispute no doubt will be remembered indefinitely by some people of the fire service area and that's unfortunate.