Audit Objective
Did Town of Amherst (Town) officials ensure employees received leave time benefits, stipends and separation payments consistent with collective bargaining agreements (CBA) and Town policies?
Audit Period
January 1, 2023 – May 22, 2025
Understanding the Audit Area
In addition to established wages and salaries, towns often provide leave time benefits and separation payments to employees. These employment benefits are generally granted in CBAs, employment contracts, policies or town board resolutions and can represent significant town expenditures. Therefore, town officials should ensure that leave time benefits are accurate and regularly reconciled, and separation payments are authorized and accurate before making payment.
The Town’s 2024 payroll and employee benefits expenditures totaled $97.1 million, and the 2025 budgeted payroll and employee benefits totaled $99.9 million. The Town paid more than $3.5 million in separation payments and nearly $618,000 in compensation for employees performing additional work during the audit period.
Audit Summary
Town officials did not ensure employees received leave time benefits, stipends and separation payments consistent with CBA language and Town policies. As a result, the Town provided additional benefits and paid compensation to employees which were not provided for in the applicable CBAs, authorized by the Town Board (Board) or supported by sufficient documentation.
- We reviewed leave records for 116 employees and identified 114 instances in which 13,058 hours of vacation leave, valued at $671,338, was inappropriately carried over, 12 instances in which employees were awarded 387 more hours of leave, valued at $24,618, than authorized by the Board-adopted “Exempt-Employee Benefits” policy (Policy), and 21 instances in which 12 exempt employees accrued 923.6 hours of unauthorized compensatory time, valued at $45,669.
- 22 stipends totaling $328,155 were paid to officials and employees without documentation indicating the additional duties to be performed or the purpose of the additional compensation.
- 78 separation payments totaling $2.5 million were inaccurate or inconsistent with CBA language and Town policies, resulting in potential overpayments of $334,852.
These errors and discrepancies occurred and were not detected or corrected due to a variety of factors including a decentralized process for maintaining leave records and a lack of oversight of leave records, stipends and separation payments. However, a significant contributing factor was that department heads responsible for reviewing leave records were unaware of all provisions of the CBAs and the Policy governing leave time benefits.
Without maintaining adequate leave records, Town officials cannot provide assurance that separation payments will be appropriately authorized and accurately calculated.
Sensitive information technology (IT) control weaknesses identified during our audit and related to our audit objective were communicated confidentially to officials.
The report includes 14 recommendations that, if implemented, will improve the Town’s employee benefits processes. Although Town officials generally agreed with our recommendations and indicated they planned to take corrective action, they disagreed with certain aspects of our findings. Appendix C includes our comments on issues raised in the Town’s response.
We conducted this audit pursuant to Article V, Section 1 of the State Constitution and the Office of the New York State Comptroller’s (OSC) authority as set forth in Article 3 of the New York State 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 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 Town Clerk’s office.