Audit Objective
Determine whether the Town of Rutland (Town) Town Clerk (Clerk) properly billed water and sewer charges.
Key Findings
The Clerk did not properly bill water and sewer charges. We identified a total of $8,823 in billing errors that resulted in $4,634 in overcharges to customer accounts and $4,189 in undercharges.
Of 81 customer account billing adjustments tested for 2022 and 2023, 80 adjustments totaling $57,083 were not reviewed or approved by the Town Board (Board) and 41 of these adjustments totaling $5,808 had no documented reason or support for the adjustments. In addition:
- The Board did not formally authorize all billing rates charged by the Town and it did not develop and adopt written policies and procedures to provide guidance on water and sewer billings and account adjustments.
- No one independent of the billing process reviewed quarterly billing reports to help ensure meter readings, estimated readings and amounts billed were accurate.
- Without proper oversight and review of the billing process, there is an increased risk that errors will continue to occur, and customers will not be billed the correct water and sewer charges.
Recommendations
The audit report includes 12 recommendations that, if implemented, will help the Board and Clerk improve the water and sewer billing process.
Town officials generally agreed with our recommendations and have initiated, or indicated they planned to initiate corrective action.