District officials accurately paid and provided benefits to employees in accordance with Board-approved contracts. We used a combination of manual and computer-assisted auditing techniques to review payroll records for all employees paid during the audit period and identify high-risk transactions. District officials established effective payroll-related policies and procedures by segregating duties and providing adequate oversight. We commend District officials for effectively designing and implementing policies and procedures that ensure the accuracy of compensation paid and benefits provided to employees.

Student treasurers did not issue duplicate press-numbered receipts or prepare adequate accountabilities for all collections. When student treasurers do not maintain and submit adequate documentation to support collections, District officials cannot ensure that students are adequately accounting for all collections and remitting them to the central treasurer in a timely manner. The central treasurer made disbursements without adequate supporting documentation and proper documentation of approval. When payments are made without adequate supporting documentation, District officials cannot ensure that the disbursements are made for appropriate purposes. Finally, student treasurers did not maintain independent ledgers documenting collections and disbursements.

The Clerk collected approximately $4.9 million in real property taxes during the audit period, which were properly remitted to Fire District officials, the Supervisor and County Treasurer. However, our review of these collections disclosed that real property tax receipts totaling $1.9 million were not deposited within 24 hours of receiving these funds, with the longest timeframe between receipt and deposit of 21 days. We compared the date Clerk fees were received with the date they were deposited and found that 181 receipts totaling $16,861 were deposited more than three business days after exceeding the $250 threshold, with at least one deposit made 16 days late. We also identified $781 in fees, which the Clerk recorded and did not deposit. Finally, while the Board conducted an annual audit of Clerk records as required, its review was inadequate.

The Board could improve its management of the Town's financial condition. Conservative budgeting practices have contributed to substantial operating surpluses. Therefore, the Town has accumulated excessive fund balances in both the townwide and town-outside-village general and highway funds. Although the Board appropriated portions of the accumulated fund balance as a financing source in the following year's budget, because of operating surpluses and accounting errors, the Town has not used appropriated fund balance as an actual financing source. The bookkeeper, as Budget Officer, inappropriately allocated sales tax revenue, resulting in taxpayer inequities and inaccurate accounting records which severely diminished the Board's ability to provide appropriate fiscal oversight. In addition, the Board has not adopted a multiyear financial plan to aid in the appropriate use and reduction of the Town's excess fund balance. Further, the Board has not performed or secured an adequate annual audit of the books and records of Town officials and employees who received or disbursed money. The Clerk's receipts and tax collections were not adequately safeguarded, increasing the risk of fraud and theft. The Clerk did not maintain a cash book to chronologically record all individual receipts on a daily basis and deposit all cash receipts intact or in a timely manner. Additionally, the Clerk did not remit taxes timely. Furthermore, the Clerk did not conduct a monthly accountability of cash with the amount in the bank and related liabilities. The Board was unaware of these inappropriate practices because they did not conduct an annual audit of the Clerk's records.

The purpose of our review was to determine whether County officials have established appropriate controls to safeguard and account for court and trust funds for the period January 1, 2014 through January 1, 2017.

The purpose of our review was to determine whether County officials have established appropriate controls to safeguard and account for court and trust funds for the period January 1, 2014 through January 1, 2017.

The Council did not adopt policies and City officials did not implement effective procedures for granting, revoking, modifying and monitoring access rights to the City's network and financial system. The Council also has not adopted adequate information technology (IT) security policies and City officials do not have formal procedures to address disaster recovery, disposal of electronic devices, data back up and password security management. The Council did not ensure cybersecurity awareness training was provided to personnel who use City IT resources.

Board members have not provided adequate financial oversight, which may be caused by their lack of training and understanding of their fiscal responsibilities. The Board did not audit District claims. Even though the financial duties are concentrated with the Treasurer, the Board did not receive or review bank statements or cancelled check images, review bank reconciliations or perform an annual audit of the Treasurer's records to ensure the accuracy of the monthly financial reports. The Board also did not ensure that the Treasurer prepared and filed the District's annual report for the 2012 through 2016 years. In addition, instead of paying a mileage allowance or reimburse actual expenses to the Department's chiefs for the use of their personal vehicles when responding to fire calls, the Board inappropriately allowed each chief to use 25 gallons of fuel every month (300 gallons annually). Finally, although District officials stated they had two reserve funds totaling $174,522 as of January 1, 2017, the Board did not establish the capital and repair reserves in compliance with General Municipal Law.

District officials need to improve budgeting practices to effectively manage the District's financial condition. The District's budgeting practices included appropriating fund balance not needed to fund operations and adopting budgets that overestimated appropriations by an average of about $874,000 (13 percent) from 2012-13 through 2016-17. As a result, unrestricted fund balance increased to $2.9 million on June 30, 2017, or 37 percent of the ensuing year's budgeted appropriations, exceeding the statutory limit by 19 to 33 percentage points from 2012-13 through 2016-17. Furthermore, the retirement contribution reserve may be overfunded.

The Board was not aware that the District's procurement policy did not specify documentation requirements and the number of quotes required. As a result, District employees did not consistently use competitive methods to procure goods and services and did not monitor credit purchases. Also, credit purchases are not properly authorized, controlled and monitored. We also found that claims totaling $728,341 were paid without sufficient documentation. Finally, the District overpaid $5,844 for fuel.

The Town did not follow the contract provisions when it billed the New York State Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (Parks) for operation/maintenance and debt service costs for the joint transmission system. Although the contract required operation and maintenance costs to be billed based on each entity's (Parks, Town and the Village of Youngstown) proportionate share of sewer flow, the Town billed Parks based on water consumption. Furthermore, the Town billed Parks for certain debt service costs in a manner that appears to be inconsistent with the contract. We estimate that Parks was inaccurately billed by approximately $152,900 for operation and maintenance, debt service and a repair to a lift station.

Although the Board has developed a procurement policy and written procedures, the policy and procedures do not provide guidance on seeking competition for professional services, require documentation of actions taken or identify the individuals responsible for making purchases. As a result, eight professional service providers were paid $178,027 and 25 vendors were paid $353,418 without seeking competition. In addition, the Town has no policies or restrictions for Internet use. We also found numerous instances of personal Internet use.

The Board has not established adequate policies and procedures governing separation payments. The calculations for separation payments made to two employees during our audit period were incorrect, resulting in inappropriate payments totaling $1,271 for additional leave accruals that were not earned. The Town also paid $17,500 to a retiring employee to cover the subsequent year's health insurance premiums, with no documented Board approval. Additionally, separation payments totaling $50,128 were paid from an “Employee Benefit Reserve” in 2016, which was not appropriately established. Furthermore, payments for health insurance premiums are not authorized expenditures to be paid from such a reserve. The Board also did not establish policies and procedures governing the financial operations of the water and sewer districts; did not enter into inter-municipal agreements with the Village of Waterloo (Village) for water and sewer services provided to the Town; and did not require regular and adequate reports from the Village to monitor the financial operations of the water and sewer districts. Town officials also did not prepare formal water reconciliations to determine unaccounted-for water, which totaled 26.8 million gallons (30 percent) from January 1, 2015 through June 30, 2016, which is three times the federal goal for acceptable water loss. From 2013 through 2016, three water districts and both sewer districts experienced net operating deficits, ranging from a total of $11,742 to $82,676. Two districts incurred a continually growing deficit fund balance over the four-year period. The Board hired a consulting firm to analyze unaccounted-for water and was provided a report in 2015 with numerous recommendations to improve operations, most of which have not been addressed.

The Board reviews and approves the abstracts without auditing the individual claims. Without a thorough and deliberate examination of each individual claim and the supporting documentation, the Board does not have enough information to determine whether the claims it approves are appropriate and legitimate. While Village Law authorizes certain claims to be paid in advance of audit, 10 of 18 claims totaling $163,725 were not authorized for such payment under Village Law. Village officials ensured that leave accruals and payments were recorded and calculated accurately.

The former Clerk-Treasurer did not appropriately record and report debt proceeds. The former Clerk-Treasurer failed to record a deposit and subsequent disbursement of $700,000 on August 12, 2010, to renew a bond anticipation note (BAN) issued on August 12, 2009. Additionally, the former Clerk-Treasurer incorrectly recorded a $3,892,000 long-term BAN, issued and held by the Environmental Facilities Corporation (EFC) in 2011; specifically, instead of recording the entire authorized amount as a revenue and cash held by the trustee as cash with fiscal agent, she recorded each disbursement from the EFC as if it were a BAN issuance. As a result, revenues and expenditures were understated in Village records and reports as well as annual update documents (AUDs) as of May 31, 2011 and short-term and long-term liabilities and cash were not accurately recorded and reported until the project was closed on January 21, 2014, and the long-term BAN was refinanced by the issuance of a serial bond totaling $3,655,000. In addition, the Board did not adequately monitor the capital project. Finally, the Clerk-Treasurer did not appropriately account for settlement proceeds and water-related expenditures.

District officials generally ensured that leave accruals were properly recorded. However, we found supervisors did not verify that leave accrual balances were available prior to approving leave requests because they did not have access to current leave balance data for employees. Additionally, because there were no periodic reviews of leave accrual records and balances, input errors may not be detected and corrected in a timely manner.

The District's total general fund balance declined by more than $21.5 million (70 percent) from 2009-10 through 2012-13. As of June 30, 2013, the District's unrestricted fund balance was less than $320,000 and fund balance totaled $9.3 million. Additionally, during 2012-13 the District used $4 million of employee benefit accrued liability reserve money to fund District operations, which was 54 percent more than the amount authorized. District officials also have not developed a multiyear financial plan to address the use of fund balance or reserve funds to finance operations. District officials took action to improve the District's financial condition by cutting costs in the 2013-14 budget. We also found that the District's claims auditor did not report to the Board or prepare any written reports for the Board showing the claims audit results. In addition, budget transfers were not made in a timely manner and budget account codes were overspent before the transfers were made. The claims auditor approved claims for payment without ensuring that sufficient budget appropriations existed to fund the cost of goods or services purchased. Our review of the District's 2012-13 budget codes showed that District officials overspent 77 budget appropriation codes by more than $4.3 million.

Generally, foreign fire insurance (FFI) tax money may be spent for any purpose which the membership of the fire department or company determine to be for the benefit of the fire department or company, provided the expenditure is not illegal or contrary to public policy. We examined all 61 FFI expenditures totaling $34,822 during our audit period for adequate support, approvals and propriety and did not identify any concerns. However, we did find that the Finance Director did not prepare or file the 2015 and 2016 annual reports with OSC, as required by General Municipal Law. The Finance Director stated that she was unaware of the requirement. After the end of our field work, the Finance Director filed the 2015 and 2016 annual FFI reports on June 29, 2017.

City officials could better safeguard the City's water and wastewater systems. There is no formal process for staying current on system cybersecurity threats. Water and wastewater personnel do not receive alerts to such threats from key sources including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Industrial Control System Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) or the Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center (WaterISAC). The Superintendent indicated that they rely on the City's third-party vendors for threat information. However, we found no evidence that such information is routinely shared and the service level agreements between the City and these vendors do not require them to do so. In addition, officials have not provided employees with cybersecurity awareness training. Finally, officials do not prevent or monitor public disclosure of information that could jeopardize the City's systems.

The County's payroll processing procedures were reasonable and our testing of pay rates, deductions and withholdings did not identify any significant deficiencies. However, the County could improve oversight for leave usage. During our initial meeting, County officials told us the Director of Probation (Director) was under investigation for taking leave from work without charging his leave accruals. He was placed on unpaid administrative leave and reached a retirement settlement with the County that deducted 71 days from his remaining leave balances. Also, the County uses an electronic timekeeping system (ETS) that records the times employees punch in and out and allows edits of timeclock times. For example, the ETS allows the designated department administrators to manually edit the start times and end times that are automatically recorded in the ETS when employees clock in and out of work. According to County officials, edits were made primarily due to employees either forgetting or not having access to punch in or out, flextime or overtime work at offsite locations. We tested 108 edits and found that 54 edits were not approved in writing by the employee's department head; 49 edits did not have support and 22 edits were done by the employees themselves. As a result, the County lacks assurance it is paying for hours worked and services rendered.

The majority of purchases are made by the Chief or two assistant chiefs and invoice approval is typically the Chief's responsibility. While the claims we reviewed were for valid purposes they did not always include approval by the official who made the purchase or have adequate supporting documentation, such as evidence that officials obtained the required number of quotes. Officials also used debit cards to make purchases totaling more than $7,300. The Board has not adopted a written claims processing policy.

Current officials of the participating municipalities were unaware they had entered into an intermunicipal agreement (agreement) establishing the Joint Youth Program (Program). Consequently, we found that several agreement provisions were not adhered to. In addition, the Program's agreement did not include provisions establishing adequate oversight of the Program's financial activities and we found that oversight of Program financial activities was inadequate. As a result, non-resident swim program fees in 2015 were not remitted to the bookkeeper for deposit and the swim program fees in 2016, which were remitted to the bookkeeper were not supported by adequate documentation, such as duplicate press-numbered receipts or daily collection reports. In addition, the Town's governing board did not establish or approve the salaries of any Program employees paid by the Town, except for the Town's recreation director. Furthermore, we found that 13 claims totaling $9,553 were not certified by a recreation director indicating their approval. We question the appropriateness of five claims totaling $856 for services provided that should most likely have been payroll disbursements, which were not supported by adequate documentation, and two claims totaling $1,894 for bus rentals that were not Program activities.

The Board did not ensure that the Superintendent complied with the Town's procurement policy when making highway department purchases. As a result, the Superintendent made purchases without soliciting bids or quotes as required, which resulted in the Town paying $8,800 more than necessary for a dump truck and purchasing $32,000 in road materials without obtaining competitive bids. In addition, the Superintendent did not obtain quotes for $27,000 in tool and auto part purchases. We reviewed available State and county contracts for $8,200 of the auto parts and all the tools and found that the Town could have saved approximately $1,200 for the auto parts and $1,100 for the tools had it purchased them through the contracts. Finally, the Board did not adopt a fleet management policy, and the Superintendent did not keep up-to-date maintenance logs for the department's fleet of vehicles and equipment.

The Clerk issued duplicate receipts for Clerk fees and recorded collections in the accounting system but did not record the form of collections in either record. The Clerk told us she was not aware that the payment form should be recorded. The Clerk also did not perform monthly bank reconciliations to verify the accuracy of Town records or accountability analyses comparing cash on hand and on deposit to known liabilities. In addition, we found deposits were not made intact. Furthermore, the Clerk did not maintain adequate records of tax collections and tax collections were not deposited timely. Budgetary estimates for certain town-wide accounts were not realistic. From 2014 through 2016, the town-wide (TW) general fund realized a total of $66,000 (7 percent) more revenue than estimated and expended $102,000 (11 percent) less than planned. During the same period, the Board adopted reasonable estimates for revenues (actual total revenues were 2 percent more than estimates) in the TW highway fund; however, actual expenditures were $318,000 (13 percent) less than estimated amounts. The combination of receiving more revenues than planned while spending less money than planned created operating surpluses for the TW general and highway funds. As a result of the operating surpluses in the TW general and highway funds, the fund balance of the TW general fund increased by $167,494 (24 percent) and the TW highway fund balance by $241,567 (89 percent) from the beginning of 2014 to the end of 2016. Furthermore, because the 2017 budget does not include realistic estimates of revenues and appropriations, it is likely these funds will realize operating surpluses in 2017, further increasing total fund balance. The Board did not establish a fund balance policy. The Board did not adopt a long-term financial or capital plan.

The Supervisor did not provide oversight of the accountants' duties related to maintaining the accounting records. Consequently, we found significant deficiencies with the Town's accounting records. From 2010 through 2016, the Town did not allocate sales tax revenue to its part-town funds to eliminate property tax levies in those funds before allocating any remaining sales tax revenue to its town-wide funds. As a result, $277,744 was improperly allocated to the town-wide general fund causing taxpayer inequities to occur. The Town lacked effective procedures to ensure water and sewer charges were accurately billed, collected and enforced. Finally, 26 of 50 claims reviewed (52 percent) totaling $59,113 were not audited and approved by the Board prior to payment.