Purpose of Audit

The purpose of our audit was to determine if leave time benefits were administered in accordance with Board-adopted policy and if Village information technology (IT) policies and procedures were adequate for the period June 1, 2007, through November 7, 2012.

Background

The Village of Lyndonville is located in the Town of Yates in Orleans County and has approximately 800 residents. The Village is governed by a Board of Trustees, which is comprised of four elected Trustees and an elected Mayor. Budget appropriations for the general, water and sewer funds in the 2012-13 fiscal year were approximately $1.2 million.

Key Findings

• The Board’s personnel policy did not clearly define important terms and conditions regarding eligibility for accruing leave or the payment for unused leave. Moreover, there is a lack of segregation of duties over the administration of leave time benefits. The Clerk-Treasurer was the only individual responsible for maintaining records of accrued leave balances, including her own, with no independent review. We reviewed two former Clerk-Treasurers’ leave accruals, and the payments made to them for unused leave time at separation from service, totaling $19,605. We found that the Village overpaid these two individuals by $6,875.
• The Board has not adopted written policies and procedures regarding the retention and safeguarding of personal, private and sensitive information in electronic format. We found that the Mayor discarded floppy disks without deleting such information first.
• The Mayor, contrary to adopted Board policy, took custody of an external hard drive owned by the Village and is currently using it for personal purposes.

Key Recommendations

• Develop personnel policies that are clear with respect to the accrual and use of leave time and the payment for unused leave at separation from service. Design and implement proper internal controls and segregate duties to ensure that there is proper oversight over the leave benefits that employees are receiving. Attempt to recover any overpayments made to the former Clerk-Treasurers.
• Develop policies and procedures to protect and ensure that all personal, private and sensitive information is removed from storage devices and media prior to disposal.
• Take possession of the external hard drive from the Mayor and determine if it contains any Village data and is still a useful Village asset.