Audit Objective
Did Delaware County Industrial Development Agency (DCIDA) officials properly monitor projects and maintain a transparent website?
Audit Period
January 1, 2022 – May 21, 2025
Understanding the Audit Area
DCIDA provides financial assistance, including tax exemptions (e.g., real property, mortgage recording and sales and use taxes), to businesses to encourage various types of economic and community development. In return for financial assistance, project owners who receive IDA financial assistance generally promise to create new jobs or retain existing jobs in the community and invest in constructing new buildings or renovating existing buildings.
DCIDA records indicate, in calendar year 2024, officials had eight active projects with project costs totaling $116 million. DCIDA officials should monitor the projects they approved to ensure the efficient use of funds, hold stakeholders accountable and ensure the economic and community development initiatives effectively and transparently achieve their intended goals.
Audit Summary
DCIDA officials did not properly monitor projects and maintain a transparent website. Without effective monitoring and transparency, DCIDA officials would be unable to identify project deficiencies, assess whether the projects have achieved their intended public benefits, or provide clear accountability to the public.
Although three DCIDA officials told us that the DCIDA Executive Director (Executive Director) made field visits to project sites to monitor their progress, officials could improve their monitoring efforts over job performance, sales and use tax exemptions, mortgage recording tax exemptions and capital investments. DCIDA officials did not:
- Verify whether project owners met agreed-upon job creation and retention goals.
- Track cumulative sales and use tax exemptions or request the Annual Report of Sales and Use Tax Exemptions Claimed (ST-340 forms) filed by the project owners with the New York State (NYS) Department of Taxation and Finance.
- Obtain affidavits or other available documentation to substantiate the amount of mortgage taxes abated.
- Verify the actual amounts invested by project owners. Instead, the DCIDA Board (Board) discussed the projects on an ongoing basis and relied on the good faith of the project owners to accurately report benefits and comply with project agreements.
Furthermore, officials did not post 25 of the 56 required1 documents on DCIDA’s website, reducing the level of transparency available to the public.
The report includes two recommendations that, if implemented, will improve DCIDA’s project monitoring and website transparency processes. DCIDA officials generally agreed with our findings and indicated they have initiated or plan to initiate corrective action. The DCIDA’s response is included in Appendix C.
We conducted this audit pursuant to Article X, Section 5 of the State Constitution and the State Comptroller’s authority as set forth in Article 3 of the NYS General Municipal Law (GML). Our methodology and standards are included in Appendix D.
The Board 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 our office within 90 days, pursuant to Section 35 of the GML. For more information on preparing and filing your CAP, please refer to our brochure, Responding to an OSC Audit Report, which you received with the draft audit report. We encourage the Board to make the CAP available for public review in DCIDA’s office.
1 The ABO requires certain information about an IDA’s activities to be made available on their website, in a manner that enables the public to easily find and navigate through it. Our audit references the required documents outlined in ABO Policy Guidance 22-01. The Policy Guidance was superseded in October 2025 by Policy Guidance 25-02, which may differ from previous versions. See: https://abo.ny.gov/system/files/ documents/2025/11/25-02websitetransparencyrequirements_0.pdf