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NEWS from the Office of the New York State Comptroller
Contact: Press Office 518-474-4015

State Comptroller DiNapoli Releases Municipal & School Audits

September 10, 2025

New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli today announced the following local government and school audits were issued.

Rochester Prep Charter School 3 – IT Asset Management (Monroe County)

Although the school board contracted with a management company to facilitate the school’s procurement of IT assets and services and to maintain inventory records, school officials did not ensure that company employees maintained complete and accurate inventory records for all IT assets. As a result, the school’s inventory records did not include all IT assets and no records contained adequate information to sufficiently track or identify the school’s IT assets because they were incomplete or inaccurate and lacked asset-identifying information.

West Sparta Independent Volunteer Fire Department Company Number 1, Inc. (Department) – Board Oversight (Livingston County)

The board did not provide adequate oversight of financial operations, placing department resources at risk of waste and theft. The board generally did not review the department’s bills before or after they were paid to help ensure that all 230 claims totaling $260,823 were properly supported and for appropriate purposes. The board also did not ensure that the treasurer maintained supporting documentation for all revenues and redeposited startup cash totaling $259,178. The treasurer did not file the 2023 foreign fire insurance (FFI) tax proceeds annual report with the State Comptroller’s office until after auditors asked about it. Auditors determined that disbursements of FFI tax proceeds were not approved by the membership and were used for inappropriate purposes, such as purchasing approximately $4,000 in gift cards.

Town of Windsor – Capital Project (Broome County)

The board did not properly manage its highway garage capital project. Although three project construction contracts totaling $4.8 million were properly procured, the board may have made material alterations to bid specifications for two other contracts totaling $1.2 million, which brings into question whether they were properly awarded. Additionally, although not required by the town’s procurement policy, the board could have solicited some type of competition and documented the results to help provide assurance that one professional service contract totaling approximately $382,000 was obtained under the most favorable terms and conditions possible and without favoritism. Town officials partially funded the project with $1.5 million in town-outside-village funds and did not have adequate documentation to support how the funds were used or that the appropriate tax base was charged.

Eastport Fire District – Procurement (Suffolk County)

Officials did not obtain competitive quotes in accordance with their procurement policy. The board-adopted policy addresses the procurement of goods and services not required to be bid. However, the policy does not provide guidance or encourage competitive methods for the procurement of professional services and insurance. The board did not use a competitive method to procure professional services and insurance coverage from 10 vendors totaling $203,097. In addition, the district paid 20 vendors for goods and services totaling $96,955, without obtaining quotes as required by the policy. As a result, the district may not have received the best price for the goods and services it purchased.

Town of Danby – Audit Follow-Up (Tompkins County)

The purpose of our review was to assess the Town of Danby’s progress as of May 2025 in implementing our recommendations in the audit report Town of Danby – Town Clerk (2022M-8), released in May 2022. The audit determined that the town clerks did not identify tax collection account errors totaling $64,959 and could not account for approximately $1,000 in cash from tax collections. The town clerks also did not maintain adequate supporting documentation for collections and complete monthly bank reconciliations and accountabilities. In addition, the board did not perform an annual audit of the town clerk’s records. Of the 10 audit recommendations, town officials implemented four recommendations, partially implemented one recommendation and did not implement five recommendations.

Starpoint Central School District – Audit Follow-Up (Niagara County)

The purpose of our review was to assess the Starpoint Central School District’s progress as of May 2025 in implementing our recommendations in the audit report Starpoint Central School District – Network Access and Application User Permissions (2022M-101), released in October 2022. The audit determined that district officials did not adequately secure access to the network or properly manage user permissions to the financial and student information applications. Of the five audit recommendations, the Board of Education, district officials, the network manager and district-assigned BOCES coordinator fully implemented one recommendation, partially implemented three recommendations, and did not implement one recommendation. We also reviewed the district’s progress in implementing our recommendations related to sensitive IT control weaknesses, which we communicated to district officials confidentially.