Audit Objective
Determine whether Rye City School District (District) officials ensured overtime was properly budgeted, approved, monitored, recorded, and paid.
Key Findings
Although overtime was properly approved and monitored, District officials did not properly budget, record or pay overtime. District officials did not budget for approximately $600,000 of incurred overtime, and generally recorded it as salaries. As a result, residents are not being made aware of what the District expects to incur in overtime costs and the budgets are not transparent regarding overtime.
We analyzed the overtime paid to 15 employees with the highest overtime charges for their positions for the audit period and reviewed all of their time records and payments totaling $428,220 and determined officials:
- Recorded $409,391 as salaries, which precluded officials from monitoring overtime expenditures because they did not know how much overtime was being paid. The District also lacked overtime monitoring policies and procedures.
- Paid six employees $2,097 in overtime wages without proper supporting documentation to determine the purpose of the overtime worked. Therefore, officials paid overtime without knowing why the additional payroll costs were incurred.
- Improperly paid an employee $239 for overtime they did not work.
Key Recommendations
- Develop realistic overtime budget estimates.
- Develop overtime policies and procedures and monitor overtime costs.
District officials disagreed with certain aspects of our findings but indicated they have initiated corrective action. Appendix B includes our comments on the District’s response letter.