Purpose of Audit

The purpose of our audit was to determine if Court officials properly collected, reported and remitted moneys on behalf of the Court for the period January 1, 2012 through December 31, 2013.

Background

The Village covers approximately one square mile and has approximately 3,300 residents. The Board of Trustees (Board), which is comprised of a Mayor and four Trustees, governs the Village and is responsible for overseeing the Court’s general management and financial operations. The Justice Court’s budgeted appropriations for 2013 were $43,284. The Village had one Justice, Robert Glenn, and two part-time Court clerks during our audit period. Per the Court’s information technology system (System), the Court collected 810 payments totaling approximately $67,700 in fines, surcharges and fees from January 1, 2012 through June 30, 2013.

Key Findings

• Based on our testing, we found the Court has not properly recorded and remitted moneys received. We found that the Court had an excess of $5,860 in unidentified revenue. We also found that the Court was holding onto $3,650 in bail money that was over six years old.
• The Court is not properly reporting unresolved traffic tickets to the State’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).
• We found weak information technology controls.

Key Recommendations

• Report and remit all excess money to the JCF until documentation is presented as to where the money should be allocated. Transfer all bail money that is over six years old to the Village.
• Contact the DMV about receiving the monthly DMV pending cases report. Periodically review and reconcile the DMV pending-ticket log with the Court’s current caseload activity to ensure that tickets are properly reported, as paid or enforced, in a timely manner.
• Assess the risk areas in the Court software, such as an inadequate audit trail and insufficient automated controls.