Audit Objective

Determine whether the Town of Homer (Town) Board (Board) and Town Supervisor (Supervisor) provided adequate oversight of non-payroll disbursements.

Key Findings

The Board and Supervisor did not provide adequate oversight of non-payroll disbursements. As a result, Town officials made duplicate payments totaling $79,806, and the Town has an increased risk that errors or irregularities could occur and remain undetected and uncorrected.

The Board and/or Supervisor did not:

• Segregate the duties or implement compensating controls relating to non-payroll disbursements. As a result, checks and balances over the powers and duties of the Supervisor and Town Clerk (Clerk) were not established.
• Establish procedures to detect and prevent duplicate payments from occurring.
• Conduct or ensure an annual audit of the Supervisor’s records and reports was performed, as required.

Key Recommendations

• Segregate non-payroll disbursements duties or implement adequate compensating controls.
• Review bank reconciliations, bank statements and canceled check images to ensure bank transactions are appropriate.
• Annually audit the Supervisor’s records, as required.

Town officials disagreed with certain aspects of our findings but indicated they will take corrective action. Appendix B includes our comment on issues raised in the Town’s response letter.