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Audit Objective

Did City of Oneida (City) officials ensure bank accounts and receivable control accounts¹ for real property taxes and water and sewer rents were properly reconciled?

Audit Period

January 1, 2024 – November 25, 2025

Understanding the Audit Area

City officials should ensure bank accounts and receivable control accounts for real property taxes and water and sewer rents are properly reconciled to verify the accuracy and completeness of financial records. Proper reconciliations help safeguard public funds and promptly identify and correct errors, irregularities or unauthorized transactions. They also provide officials with reliable financial information needed to effectively monitor cash and receivable balances and make informed financial decisions.

As of June 30, 2025, the City had 25 bank accounts with cash balances totaling approximately $39 million. In fiscal year 2024, the City billed approximately $6 million for real property taxes and $9.7 million for water and sewer rents.

Audit Summary

City officials did not properly reconcile bank accounts or receivable control accounts for real property taxes and water and sewer rents. As a result, officials lacked assurance that financial records were accurate and complete and that errors, discrepancies or irregularities in collections, disbursements and amounts owed to the City would be identified and corrected in a timely manner. When bank and receivable records are not properly reconciled, officials’ ability to effectively monitor the City’s financial condition is diminished, and there is an increased risk that errors could be made, or public funds could be misused without detection.

We determined the following:

• Bank reconciliations were not properly performed and adequately reviewed. The June 2025 reconciliations for five of the City’s 25 bank accounts included various reconciling items that were unsupported, inaccurate or required additional follow-up that was not performed. For example, deposits in transit for the City Chamberlain’s (Chamberlain) collections were unsupported and overstated by $39,361 and journal entry adjustments totaling $25,665 were incorrectly reflected in the reconciliations. Also, outstanding checks totaling $13,918 that were written over seven years ago and carried over from the prior accounting system continue to appear on the monthly bank reconciliations even though they are likely no longer outstanding. Because the reconciliations included unsupported and inaccurate reconciling items, the bank reconciliation process did not detect that the City’s total cash was overstated by $28,786. 
• The City’s contracted comptroller² had unnecessary online administrative access to the City’s bank accounts and was responsible for preparing bank reconciliations and recording journal entries in the accounting records without independent oversight. Although we determined that bank transfers totaling approximately $16.6 million were for appropriate City purposes, this lack of segregation of duties and unnecessary bank account access increases the risk that improper transfers or accounting adjustments could occur and remain undetected. 
• The receivable control account balances for real property taxes and water and sewer rents were not reconciled to the detailed subsidiary records that identify the amounts that individual taxpayers and customers owed. As a result, differences between the accounting records and unpaid customer account balances were not identified, investigated and resolved. For example, as of June 2025, unpaid real property tax customer accounts exceeded the related receivable control accounts by $177,006 and unpaid water and sewer customer account balances exceeded the corresponding control accounts by $11,197. 

The report includes nine recommendations that, if implemented, will strengthen the City’s bank and receivable reconciliation processes, improve the accuracy and reliability of its financial records and enhance oversight of cash and amounts owed to the City. City officials generally agreed with our findings and indicated they have initiated or plan to initiate corrective action. Appendix C includes our comments on issues raised in the City’s response letter.

This audit was conducted pursuant to Article V, Section 1 of the State Constitution and the Office of the New York State Comptroller’s (OSC’s) authority as set forth in Article 3 of the New York State General Municipal Law (GML). The audit’s methodology and standards are included in Appendix D.

The Common Council (Council) has the responsibility to initiate corrective action. A written corrective action plan (CAP) that addresses the findings and recommendations in this report should be prepared and provided to OSC within 90 days, pursuant to Section 35 of GML. For more information on preparing and filing the CAP, please refer to the OSC brochure, Responding to an OSC Audit Report, which was provided with the draft audit report. The Council is encouraged to make the CAP available for public review in the City Clerk’s office.

1 Receivable control accounts are the accounting records that summarize the total amounts owed to the City, such as unpaid real property taxes and water and sewer rents and should agree with the detailed billing and collection records.

2 The former City Comptroller (Comptroller) resigned from the City on June 14, 2024. She went to work for the City’s contracted accounting firm and provided financial services for the City on behalf of the firm. City officials refer to the former Comptroller as the contracted comptroller.