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Audit Objective

Did Village of Owego (Village) officials maintain complete, accurate and timely accounting records and reports?

Audit Period

August 1, 2023 – May 21, 2025

We extended the audit period forward to February 10, 2026, to review the Annual Financial Report (AFR) filing status.

Understanding the Audit Area

Village officials must maintain complete, accurate and current 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 transparency and the public’s trust.

The Village’s 2024-25 fiscal year general fund appropriations totaled approximately $4 million.

Audit Summary

Village officials did not maintain complete, accurate and timely accounting records and reports. The Clerk-Treasurer’s accounting records contained errors and omitted transactions, and monthly bank reconciliations were not prepared. As a result, the Village Board (Board) received inaccurate financial reports and could not provide adequate oversight of the Village’s financial operations. Additionally, because the Clerk-Treasurer did not file the Village’s AFR on time and the Board did not perform an annual audit of the Clerk-Treasurer’s accounting records, officials did not comply with New York State General Municipal Law (GML) and New York State Village Law (Village Law), which diminished the Board’s ability to identify inaccurate and incomplete accounting records and reports and address deficiencies. We determined the following:

• The Clerk-Treasurer’s accounting records were not always updated in a timely manner and included various unrecorded transactions and errors, including $3.2 million in revenue for a Bond Anticipation Note (BAN)¹ that was not recorded in the accounting records. 
• The Clerk-Treasurer did not prepare monthly bank reconciliations for all 31 Village bank accounts. We compared the Village’s recorded cash balances to the bank balances for all funds as of August 31, 2024, and determined that recorded cash balances did not reconcile with the bank balances for all 31 bank accounts. The total bank balances were approximately $3.2 million (74 percent) higher than the total recorded cash balances. However, because some bank accounts were overstated while others were understated, the combined amount of these misstatements totaled approximately $4.2 million. 
• The Clerk-Treasurer did not provide complete and accurate monthly financial reports to the Board. Specifically, the cash reports contained unreconciled cash balances, balance sheet reports were not provided, and budget-to-actual comparisons were inaccurate. 
• The Clerk-Treasurer did not file the Village’s AFR with the New York State Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) on time for five fiscal years (2018-19 through 2022-23) as required by GML Section 30. The AFRs were filed with OSC between 595 and 848 days late as of February 10, 2026. Additionally, as of February 10, 2026, the Clerk-Treasurer has not filed the Village’s AFRs for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 fiscal years.² Because AFRs were not filed in a timely manner, OSC was unable to analyze the AFRs to identify possible fiscal stress. 
• The Board did not perform an annual audit of the Clerk-Treasurer’s accounting records as required by Village Law Section 4-408. 

The report includes nine recommendations that, if implemented, will improve the Village official’s maintenance and oversight of records and reports. Village officials generally agreed with our recommendations, and their response is included in Appendix B. 

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. 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 the New York State General Municipal Law. 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.

1 The BAN was associated with a Downtown Revitalization Initiative project.  

2 OSC’s website provides more information on AFR non-filers and the Village’s current AFR filing status at: https://web.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/afr-non-filers/