Audit Objective
Did the Village of Victory (Village) Clerk-Treasurer maintain accurate, complete and timely accounting records and reports?
Audit Period
June 1, 2023 – February 28, 2025.
We expanded the audit period back to May 31, 2019, and forward to September 10, 2025, to review the Annual Financial Report (AFR) filing status.
Understanding the Audit Area
A village clerk-treasurer, as chief fiscal officer, must maintain accurate, complete and timely accounting records and reports for informed decision-making, legal compliance and accountability. These records are essential for a village board and officials when monitoring a village’s financial health, making sound fiscal decisions, ensuring that the village complies with various laws and maintaining the public’s trust.
For the 2024-25 fiscal year, the Village’s general fund and sewer fund appropriations were $559,419 and $114,366, respectively.
Audit Summary
The Clerk-Treasurer did not maintain accurate and complete accounting records, provide the Board with adequate monthly financial reports and file the AFRs in a timely manner (Figure 1). As a result, the Board’s ability to properly and effectively monitor and manage the Village’s financial operations was limited and Village residents and other interested parties were prevented from being informed of the Village’s financial position.
Because the Clerk-Treasurer did not properly maintain accurate accounting records, the monthly financial reports provided to the Board were not complete as they did not contain reconciled cash balances and an accurate budget status report. The Clerk-Treasurer also did not properly prepare bank reconciliations because she did not reconcile the adjusted bank balances to book balances recorded in the central accounting system. In addition, the budget status reports did not contain all pertinent information such as amounts budgeted for real property tax revenue and all budget amendments approved by the Board or show the original budgeted amounts for revenues and appropriations.
Furthermore, the Clerk-Treasurer filed the fiscal years 2018-19 through 2024-25 AFRs late with the New York State Office of the State Comptroller (OSC), including the 2021-22 through 2024-25 AFRs, which were filed after completion of fieldwork. As of September 10, 2025, AFRs were filed between 41 and 1,322 days late.
The Board did not adequately monitor the Village’s finances because it did not verify the accuracy of the monthly reports it received and did not annually audit the Clerk-Treasurer’s records to ensure the financial records were accurate, complete and maintained in a timely manner. Had the Board periodically monitored the Village’s finances and conducted the required annual audit, the Board may have identified the deficiencies noted in this report.
The report includes 10 recommendations that, if implemented, will improve the Village’s financial records and reports to ensure they are accurate, complete and prepared in a timely manner. With this information, the Board, Village officials and other stakeholders can make informed decisions. Village 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 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 Clerk- Treasurer’s office.