Audit Objective
Did the Town of Cato (Town) Town Clerk/Tax Collector (Clerk) timely1 and accurately record, deposit, remit and report all collections?
Audit Period
January 1, 2023 – February 12, 2026
Understanding the Audit Area
A town clerk must timely and accurately record, deposit, remit and report collections to enable informed decision-making by the town board, prevent fraud or misappropriation of funds, comply with legal requirements and maintain public trust. Accurate and timely records are essential for establishing financial accountability and proper financial management, oversight by the town board and taxpayers and the protection of public funds.
During the period reviewed, the town clerk’s collections totaled approximately $5.8 million.
Audit Summary
Although the Clerk and former Clerk2 generally recorded and reported collections accurately and in a timely manner for the period reviewed, the former Clerk did not deposit and remit all collections within the timeframes prescribed in New York State (NYS) Town Law (Town Law). This resulted in a lack of compliance and increased the risk that collections could be lost, unaccounted for or misappropriated without detection.
The former Clerk did not deposit clerk fee collections totaling approximately $54,000 and real property tax collections totaling approximately $2.8 million in a timely manner or remit real property tax collections totaling approximately $883,000 in a timely manner to the Supervisor as required by Town Law Sections 30 and 35, respectively.
This report includes two recommendations that, if implemented, will improve the Clerk’s financial activities. Town officials generally agreed with our recommendations and indicated they planned 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 General Municipal Law (GML). Our methodology and standards are included in Appendix C.
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 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 the Clerk’s office.
1 Timeliness is further defined in Appendix A, Criteria section.
2 The former Clerk served until her resignation on April 4, 2025, and the Board appointed a new Clerk as of April 7, 2025.