Audit Objective
Did the Town of Galway (Town) Board (Board) properly authorize and monitor salaries paid and benefits provided?
Audit Period
January 1, 2022 – May 31, 2025
Understanding the Audit Area
A town board should properly authorize and monitor salaries and benefits to fulfill its fiscal responsibilities, maintain accountability over public funds, and help ensure compensation and benefits are accurate, reasonable and authorized. Payroll payments, including regular salaries and wages, overtime and employee benefits, represent a significant portion of a town’s annual budget.
The Town’s 2025 fiscal year budgeted appropriations totaled $4.3 million (including capital and special district funds), with employees’ salaries, wages and benefits accounting for $1.3 million (30 percent) of the total.
Audit Summary
The Board authorized salaries and benefits through resolutions and a collective bargaining agreement (CBA). Time worked was supported by time records containing supervisory approval, all payrolls were certified by the Town Supervisor (Supervisor), and leave accruals were generally earned and used appropriately. However, the Supervisor did not adequately monitor salaries paid and benefits provided to ensure employees were paid and received benefits consistent with approved resolutions and the CBA. As a result, certain employees were paid amounts or provided benefits that were either inconsistent with the Town’s approved resolutions or CBA or without documented Board approval.
Because the Board did not document authorizations to adjust salaries and the current and former Supervisor did not provide adequate oversight of payroll and benefits, the following errors totaling $27,215 went undetected during the audit period:
- Eight of the 25 salaried employees we reviewed were paid a combined total of $15,486 without documented Board approval and two salaried employees were underpaid a combined total of $922.
- Two (29 percent) of the seven hourly employees we reviewed were paid an additional $300 without documentation to support the additional payment.
- Three employees contributed $9,174 less than they should have toward their shares of health insurance premiums because the bookkeeper followed the terms of the CBA for all employees and officials regardless of whether such employees were authorized to receive such benefits pursuant to the CBA. The Board also did not establish health insurance premium shares for one appointed official and the bookkeeper did not always accurately calculate health insurance premium shares between employees or officials and the Town.
- One full-time highway employee exceeded the 2,000-hour sick leave limit during the audit period by 19.75 hours, valued at $574, because officials involved in the process did not enforce the contractual sick leave limit.
- Four of the five part-time employees (80 percent) entitled to leave accrual benefits used a total of 40 more hours than authorized by Board resolution, valued at $759.
The report includes eight recommendations that, if implemented, will improve the Town’s process of authorizing and paying salaries and employee benefits. Town officials generally agreed with our recommendations and indicated they have begun 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 (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 Town Clerk’s office.