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Audit Objective

Determine whether the Village of South Floral Park’s (Village) Board provided adequate oversight and management of budgets and fund balance and ensured annual audits were completed.

Key Findings

The Board did not provide appropriate oversight and management of budgets and fund balance or ensure annual audits were completed. More real property taxes were assessed than necessary to fund operations each year.

• The Board failed to hold budget hearings before April 15 each year (from two to 11 days late) to discuss the 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 budgets, and the budgets presented were not in the proper form, as required.
• Inaccurate budgeting led to underestimated revenues totaling $289,565 (19 percent) over these years. As of May 31, 2020, unassigned fund balance was $463,948, which is 78 percent of the 2020-21 appropriations.
• The Village has excess fund balance and the Board did not adopt a fund balance policy.

Key Recommendations

• Hold public hearings on or before April 15.
• Adopt realistic annual budgets that are based on historical trends and other known factors.
• Reduce fund balance to a reasonable amount.

Village officials generally agreed with our recommendations and have initiated or indicated they planned to initiate corrective action. Appendix B includes our comments on issues raised in the Village’s response letter.