Audit Objective
Did Avoca Central School District (District) officials accurately pay employees’ salaries and wages?
Audit Period
July 1, 2022 – January 28, 2025
Understanding the Program
School district officials should establish an effective payroll system that provides assurance that payroll transactions are adequately supported, authorized by management and accurately paid in accordance with board-approved collective bargaining agreements (CBAs), individual employee contracts and board-established rates.
The payroll clerk is responsible for entering and adjusting employee salary, pay rates and hours worked into the financial software, as well as processing payroll each period.
The District employed a total of 218 employees who were paid a total of $13 million during the period July 1, 2022 through October 10, 2024.
Audit Summary
District officials generally paid employees’ salaries and wages accurately during the period July 1, 2022 through October 10, 2024. We reviewed 35 employees’ salaries and wage payments totaling $417,720 and determined that District officials generally1 paid employees’ salaries and wages accurately during the period. We also determined that District officials did not adequately segregate duties or establish mitigating controls over the payroll processing. Without adequate segregation of duties or mitigating controls over payroll processing, errors and irregularities could occur and go unnoticed.
The report includes four recommendations that, if implemented, will improve the District’s payroll process.
District officials agreed with our recommendations and indicated they plan to initiate corrective action.
We conducted this audit pursuant to Article V, Section 1 of the State Constitution and the State Comptroller’s authority as set forth in Article 3 of the New York State General Municipal Law. Our methodology and standards are included in Appendix C.
The Board of Education (Board) has the responsibility to initiate corrective action. A written corrective action plan (CAP) that addresses the findings and recommendations in this report must be prepared and provided to our office within 90 days, pursuant to Section 35 of the New York State General Municipal Law, Section 2116-a (3)(c) of the New York State Education Law and Section 170.12 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education. To the extent practicable, implementation of the CAP must begin by the end of the next fiscal year. 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. The CAP should be posted on the District’s website for public review.
1 We discussed the lack of support for one employee’s salary and wage payments during the audit period.