“You’ve got some people that are really fouling things up”  Texas state representative Glen Hager told us. “And they’re really taking the taxpayers for a big ride.”

What’s this lawmaker so concerned about?

In the business of fire and emergency services, Hager says, too often that “there’s total lax of oversight. They’re going to rip people off.”

For example, 11 News Investigates tracked down a spending spree at the New Caney Fire Department that wasn’t all for official fire business.

Bought on the public dime there were hundreds of dollars in pet food and supplies, a surround sound stereo system, more than a thousand dollars worth of weight loss products, and even a box of condoms.

The department’s former bookeeper admitted regret.

“I did something wrong”, said Debbie Yancy now the focus a criminal investigation along with her husband, the former president of the fire district board.

So why don’t other board members notice the spending?

“We thought everything was going great” said board member Guy Hancock.”I don’t think we even thought there was a problem.”

And there appears to have been a lack of oversight from even higher public officials.

Ed Rinehart is the Montgomery County Commissioner who appoints members to the fire district board.

Channel 11: “ What’s going on with all the spending at the fire district?”

Rinehart: “I don’t know.”

Channel 11: “You don’t know?”

Rinehart:  “No. I don’t know how they do their business”

So just who “is” minding the store?

Well, 11 News Investigates discovered that’s the problem, not only with New Caney but other fire departments as well..

Take Magnolia, Texas, where the fire chief pleaded guilty to abuse of official capacity for misusing nearly 40,000 dollars in public funds.

And there is the Needham Fire Department in Conroe where the treasurer pleaded guilty to theft for stealing more than 100,000 dollars.

And as we first reported in May, the Harris County District Attorney is investigating the president of Emergency Services District One for a potential conflict of interest in having his construction side business do a half-million dollars worth of work for the district.

Representative Hager calls the abuse, a disturbing and growing trend: “You don’t just have one individual case, you don’t have just two individual cases. You’ve got several in one area. Imagine, potentially what’s going on throughout the state of Texas”

But there is no one at the “state” level watching these districts.

Charlie Stone runs the Office of Rural Community Affairs, which used to have a training program in place for districts. The only problem he says: “It was cut out by the legislature” because of funding cuts. “It was very unfortunate.”

And it’s why Hager is working to resurrect the program in the last legislative session. He says, “It’s your money, it’s my money, it’s my next door neighbor’s money, it’s all the people who are paying the tax bill at the end of the day”