Audit Objective 

Determine whether Sherburne-Earlville Central School District (District) officials properly calculated employees’ leave accruals and accurately paid employees’ separation payments.

Key Findings

Officials did not always properly calculate employees’ leave accruals, accurately pay employees’ separation payments, reduce leave balances when leave buybacks were processed or record leave in the District’s leave tracking system. In addition, procedures were not in place for maintaining leave accrual records or to ensure that separation payments were made in accordance with appropriate collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) or contracts. As a result: 

• 60 employees were credited with either more leave days (209) or less leave days (143) than what they were entitled to.
• Three employees’ vacation accruals were not properly reduced by a total of 18 days, valued at $8,640.
• 16 employees used 34 days of leave that were not recorded in the leave tracking system.
• Nine employees had leave balances that exceeded end-of-school-year allowances by 18 days.
• Five employees were overpaid 55 days totaling $7,154.

Recommendations 

The audit report includes six recommendations to help the Board and District officials improve their practices over employee benefits.