Chad LaVallee

The Alfalfa Rural Fire District Board of Directors has placed former Fire Chief Chad LaValle on administrative leave following allegations of financial impropriety during his tenure. The board voted 3-1 to suspend LaValle, who has faced heightened scrutiny over district spending and hiring practices.

Newly obtained financial records from the Alfalfa Fire District spanning 2023 through 2025 are raising additional questions about former board president Nathan "Nate" Starr, including thousands of dollars in apparently unpaid facility usage fees involving a legally dissolved church, meals purchased with district funds, and financial transactions involving a family member.

Newly obtained credit card records from the Alfalfa Fire District reveal extensive travel expenditures involving former Fire Chief Chad LaVallee, including trips across the country, repeated hotel stays, rental vehicles, vacation packages and airfare purchased for members of his family.

Newly obtained text messages between former Alfalfa Fire District Chief Chad LaVallee and two Central Oregon Community College (COCC) officials reveal that LaVallee claimed the district was already interviewing prospective replacements for his position weeks before its governing board formally authorized advertising the job.

The Alfalfa Fire District's sale of a taxpayer-owned ambulance to Central Oregon Community College (COCC) for $15,000 is facing new scrutiny after records obtained by the Prineville Review revealed the college had apparently already paid the district before the vehicle was offered through a public auction that ultimately drew no other bidders.

The Alfalfa Fire District has finally released some of its 2026 bank records to the Prineville Review following weeks of delays, revealing nearly $90,000 in checks, a $157,420 FEMA deposit and thousands in other spending — but significant records needed to determine where some of the money went remain missing.

Alfalfa Fire District officials acknowledged Wednesday night they still do not have access to critical banking records needed to determine what happened to potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in state and federal grant funding, while new questions emerged over former Fire Chief Chad LaVallee's continuing role with the district more than two months after his resignation.

Former Alfalfa Fire District Chief Chad LaVallee has been traveling the country teaching firefighters while representing himself as having 16 years in the fire service, including experience in both career and volunteer departments and nine years as chief of a rural combination fire district.

The wife of Alfalfa Fire District Acting Board President Mark Laucks launched into a lengthy social media attack against critics of the embattled fire district this week, blaming residents raising concerns about its operations for the loss of emergency services and making several claims about Wednesday’s board meeting that do not appear to have actually happened.

A company that supplied the Alfalfa Fire District with approximately $165,000 in new breathing equipment to protect firefighters says it has not been paid anything for the purchase more than half a year after the district publicly celebrated receiving the equipment that its former chief Chad LaVallee claimed was paid for through a federal FEMA grant.