Determine whether the Town of Plymouth (Town) Town Board (Board) authorized disbursements that were properly supported and for appropriate purposes and effectively managed the Highway Department’s assets and inventory.

Key Findings 

The Board did not verify that disbursements were supported and for an appropriate purpose prior to payment. The Board also did not ensure the Highway Superintendents (Superintendent) properly safeguarded Town assets and maintained complete, accurate and reliable inventory records. As a result, 47 Town assets totaling $6,654 were unaccounted for.

We reviewed 949 disbursements totaling $2 million that included vehicle and equipment parts and solvents, reimbursements to officials and employees and payments to other vendors and determined: 

• The Board approved 47 disbursements totaling $9,769 for vehicle parts that were not compatible with any Town vehicles or equipment and 12 questionable disbursements totaling $23,817 for solvents. Some of the parts are only compatible with snowmobiles, all-terrain and utility-task vehicles, none of which the Town owns. The solvents were purchased from out-of-state vendors at higher prices than local vendors offered and some products were never used. All five Board members said they were not aware of what they were approving but trusted the employees.
• The Board did not approve 16 payments totaling $12,889, some of which lacked support, and included 10 reimbursements of $3,902 paid to Town officials and employees and six payments of $8,987 paid to other vendors.

Key Recommendations 

The audit report includes 10 recommendations to help the Board and Town officials improve their practices over disbursements and asset and inventory management.

Town officials agreed with our recommendations and indicated they plan to initiate corrective action.