Audit Objective
Determine whether the Town of Rutland (Town) Town Clerk/Tax Collector (Clerk) recorded, deposited, remitted and reported all collections accurately and in a timely manner.
Key Findings
The Clerk did not always record, deposit, remit and report all collections accurately and in a timely manner. For example:
- Due to deficiencies in the records, it is unclear whether eight recorded cash and check collections totaling $161 were deposited in the bank and whether cash collections totaling $8,224 were deposited in a timely manner, as received.
- Collections totaling $5,806 were deposited but not recorded in the records.
- Seven monthly reports and remittances to the Town Supervisor (Supervisor) and other agencies were submitted 16 to 178 days late.
- The Clerk did not make 11 deposits of real property taxes totaling $191,581 in a timely manner and remit taxes to the Supervisor and County Treasurer within the timeframes specified by New York State Town Law (Town Law).
The Clerk also did not complete monthly bank reconciliations and accountability analyses (compare cash on hand with known liabilities) to help identify and correct errors. As a result, the Clerk bank account had a cash shortage of $647 as of December 1, 2023, and the tax bank account had an unidentified cash balance of $4,375 as of October 31, 2024.Additionally, the Board did not perform an annual audit of the Clerk’s records, as required by Town Law, which could have assisted officials in detecting and addressing the deficiencies sooner.
Recommendations
The audit report includes 14 recommendations that, if implemented, will help the Clerk and Board improve collection records, procedures and oversight.
Town officials generally agreed with our recommendations and have initiated, or indicated they planned to initiate corrective action.