New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli today announced the following local government audits have been issued.
Cortland County – Claims Audit and Check Printing (2018M-247)
The Cortland County Legislature has not audited claims since 2015. These deficiencies occurred primarily because the legislature did not consider other options available to it by law, such as establishing a comptroller position responsible for auditing claims or retaining the legislature’s claims audit responsibility.
Town of Harrison – Budgeting Practices (Westchester County)
Auditors compared budgeted revenues and expenditures with operating results for 2013 through 2017 and found that expenditure estimates were generally reasonable except for police special detail. However, the board underestimated revenues by an average of $3.08 million each year, for a cumulative total of more than $15.4 million.
Village of Muttontown – Board Oversight (Nassau County)
The board did not annually audit the clerk-treasurer’s records from 2014-15 through 2017-18 to ensure all money was properly accounted for.
Town of Parma – Real Property Tax Exemptions Administration (Monroe County)
The town granted a total of 1,479 non-NYS STAR property tax exemptions for non-municipal-owned property on the 2017 assessment roll, collectively reducing the town’s 2018 taxable assessed value by more than $89.02 million.
Town of Seneca Falls – Town Hall Capital Project (Seneca County)
The board established an initial amount of nearly $2.6 million to be used from its capital reserve for a project to construct a new town hall. However, it did not prepare an itemized project budget and did not appropriately monitor the project. As a result, the town incurred total project costs of approximately $4.55 million.
Town of Woodstock – Information Technology (Ulster County)
The town adopted a computer privacy policy that states that computers are to be used for business purposes only. However, officials did not design or implement procedures to monitor compliance with the policy or determine the amount of employees’ personal use.
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