Department staff are not consistently and effectively collecting payments of court-ordered financial obligations from defendants. We reviewed 24 cases with outstanding balances totaling $107,827 and found that 20 cases (83 percent) were in arrears totaling approximately $62,100. In addition, Department staff do not report defendant non-payment delinquencies to the court in a timely manner as required by law. Further, the Department did not charge applicable defendants Driving While Intoxicated or Driving While Ability Impaired administrative fees totaling approximately $215,300 that were allowed by law. Department staff have not disbursed victims' trust fund moneys since April 2012 and lack a process to locate victims that should receive payments after initial contact by mail. Therefore, the Department potentially had $35,091 in undisbursed restitution payments as of July 2015. Because the Department's computerized software that recorded the amounts owed and paid by the defendants and owed and paid to the victims was limited in the types of reports that could be generated, the composition of the undisbursed funds is unknown. Finally, Department staff are unable to perform an accountability of the Department's assets (cash and receivables) and liabilities at any point in time. The Director has not adequately segregated the administrative assistant's duties in the collection and disbursement process or provided compensating controls, which increased the risk that Department funds could be misappropriated without detection.

District officials have not adequately managed the District's financial condition by maintaining reserve fund balances at reasonable levels and developing long-term plans. There is no written plan that details the appropriate and necessary levels for reserve funds and prescribes how the reserve fund balances are to be monitored, analyzed and maintained. As a result, four of the District's 11 reserve funds, totaling more than $6.8 million, may be overfunded or unnecessary. Additionally, District officials have not developed formal multiyear financial or capital plans, which would greatly benefit the District in meeting its current and future obligations and preparing for potentially adverse economic and environmental challenges.

District officials did not maintain fund balance in accordance with statutory requirements. The unrestricted fund balance exceeded the statutory limit of 4 percent of the ensuing year's budget for each of the last three years, ranging from 5 to 11 percent. From 2012-13 through 2014-15, the District's unrestricted fund balance increased by $568,000, or 108 percent. As of June 30, 2015, the District's reported unrestricted fund balance totaled $1.1 million, exceeding the statutory limit by $691,000. Further, over these three years, the District actually used $382,000, or 18 percent, of the $2.2 million of fund balance appropriated to finance operations. During 2014-15, District officials appropriated $681,641 to help finance the 2015-16 budget; however, we project that they will use about $121,000 (18 percent). As such, the District's unrestricted fund balance will continue to exceed the statutory limit. District officials have established a repair reserve in 2015-16 with some of the excess funds. However, over the last three years, when unused appropriated fund balance was added back, the District's recalculated unrestricted fund balance exceeded the statutory limit each year, ranging from 13 to 16 percent of the ensuing year's budget.

District officials did not effectively manage cafeteria operations. District officials did not perform a cost-per-meal analysis and did not always consider past productions when planning future meals, which contributed to the cost of producing a meal exceeding the price charged. As a result, the general fund is subsidizing the school lunch fund, on average, $66,000 annually. District cafeteria staff do not produce the meals in a productive manner. The District's productivity level for meals per labor hour (MPLH) is not within the industry averages. Although the industry averages may not always be achievable given certain District conditions, District officials can use the industry averages to monitor operations and work towards increasing productivity, when necessary. District officials should actively monitor the MPLH to improve the operational productivity. Further, District officials did not adequately segregate duties over the collection, accounting and depositing of money or implement adequate mitigating controls, which increases the risk of recording and depositing errors or irregularities.

The Board did not effectively manage reserves and fund balance. We found that, as of June 30, 2015, the District had an account for post-employment benefit liabilities totaling over $7.1 million when there is currently no authority to reserve funds for this purpose. District officials also could not provide documentation for the establishment of its unemployment reserve fund. Additionally, three reserve funds with balances totaling over $1.5 million may be excessively funded. Had the unauthorized post-employment benefit liability funds been properly reported, total unrestricted fund balance would have been 23 percent of the ensuing year's budgeted appropriations, far exceeding the statutory limit of 4 percent. The District also did not use appropriated fund balance of $1.62 million, which would further increase the unrestricted fund balance beyond 23 percent.

We examined a sample of 2014-15 payroll transactions totaling $1.14 million and found that the District's salary and wage payments were accurate and leave records were properly maintained. However, District officials did not document their verification of eligibility for retirement incentives, totaling $90,000, that were paid to three former employees, which resulted in a payment of $30,000 to one individual that was inconsistent with CBA provisions. In addition, the District paid $6,962 for unused vacation to the former Superintendent that was not provided for in the former Superintendent's employment contract.

The Board needs to improve its oversight of the claims audit function. The Board did not develop a comprehensive job description that outlines the expectations and requirements of the claims auditor. It also did not provide purchasing policies for the claims auditor to use as guidance when auditing the claims related to purchases that do not require competitive bidding. In addition, the claims auditor did not ensure that sufficient funds were available on open purchase orders when approving claims resulting in eight open purchase orders being overspent by $77,436.

District officials established adequate procedures to ensure employees were paid their approved salaries or wages. The Board approves the hiring of all new employees and establishes salaries and wages in the provisions of negotiated collective bargaining agreements or individual contracts. Other compensation rates that are not addressed in the agreements (e.g. additional duties or appointments to positions such as the tax collector, claims auditor or coaches) are determined at Board meetings and documented in the meeting minutes. Establishing and adhering to a good system for processing and verifying payroll payments ensures the employees are accurately paid their salaries and wages. We commend District officials for designing an effective system that ensures the accuracy of compensation paid to employees.

District officials established adequate procedures for payroll to ensure employees were accurately paid at their approved salaries or wages. Establishing and adhering to a good system for processing and verifying payroll payments helps ensure that employees will be accurately paid their salaries and wages. We commend District officials for establishing an effective system that ensures the accuracy of compensation paid to employees.

The Board and District officials could improve their efforts to ensure retirees enrolled for health insurance benefits are eligible. The Board has not developed written policies or procedures to monitor retiree health insurance eligibility. The District also made payments to providers totaling $3.6 million without receiving support indicating enrollee information and/or premium rates. Further, District officials are not proactively ensuring the continued eligibility of retirees. As a result, the District has an increased risk that it could be paying for ineligible enrollees.

District officials managed fund balance responsibly in accordance with statute. Real Property Tax Law allows a school district to maintain up to 4 percent of the ensuing year's budget as unrestricted fund balance. The District has maintained approximately this amount of unrestricted fund balance for the three fiscal years that we reviewed. District officials' adopted budgets were reasonable because revenues and appropriations were based on known sources and historical trends. Furthermore, District officials adequately monitored the budgets throughout the year. Although total reserves remained relatively flat, we analyzed the individual reserves and determined that the reserve for compensative absences is overfunded. This reserve must be used only for cash payments for accrued and unused sick, vacation and certain other leave time owed to employees when they leave District employment. As of June 30, 2015, we determined the District's liability for compensated absences was approximately $1.3 million. However, the reserve balance was over $2.4 million. Therefore, the reserve was overfunded by approximately $1.1 million. While District officials effectively managed financial operations, the Board should have adopted a reserve policy that established the reserves to be used, how they would be funded and when they would be used.

The Board did not develop reasonable budgets or effectively manage the District's financial condition to ensure that the general fund's unrestricted fund balance was within the statutory limit. District officials overestimated expenditures in the budgets resulting in an unrestricted fund balance of $2.8 million at the end of 2014-15, which was 5.5 percent of the next year's appropriations. Although this amount exceeded the 4 percent statutory limit, District officials have made progress in reducing the unrestricted fund balance from 12.3 percent of the next year's appropriations at the end 2012-13. District officials have also maintained excessive balances in three reserve funds, including the employee benefit accrued liability reserve (EBALR) which is overfunded by $2 million, the capital reserve which has a balance of $490,000 that relates to a completed capital project and the tax certiorari reserve which has a balance of $362,357 with no pending claims. The District has also accumulated and maintained excess funds in its debt service fund. As of June 30, 2015, the District had $7.1 million in this fund. However, District officials were unable to demonstrate why $6.9 million of that amount was restricted in the debt service fund. While District officials told us that they intended to use it for future projects, they did not request required voter approval for establishing a capital reserve.

The Board and District officials need to improve the budget process to ensure that adopted budgets are reasonable, allowing them to effectively manage the District's financial condition. The Board overestimated appropriations in the adopted budgets in four of the past five years. This generated almost $4.3 million in combined operating surpluses from 2010-11 through 2014-15. While the Board used operating surpluses to fund various reserves and capital projects, they also appropriated an average of $1.8 million in fund balance as a financing source in the annual budgets over this period. However, District officials used appropriated fund balance to fund operations in only one year. As a result, 84 percent of the amount appropriated was not needed due to operating surpluses. When the unused appropriated fund balance is added back to fund balance, the District's recalculated unrestricted fund balance ranged between 10 and 12 percent of the ensuing year's appropriations, exceeding the 4 percent limit in the last four fiscal years.

District officials employed budgeting practices that generated operating deficits, but only used a fraction of the appropriated fund balance to fund operations. This resulted in fund balance appropriations that were not needed. As a result, during the 2012-13 through 2014-15 fiscal years, the District's unassigned fund balance was 9.65 to 12.35 percent of the ensuing years' budgets, while the statutory limit for fund balance was 4 percent. In addition, the Board transferred moneys to the District's reserves without calculations or justifications for the funding levels in the reserves and maintained balances in the unemployment insurance reserve and workers' compensation reserve that were excessive because those balances could fund related costs for 15 years and six years, respectively. These budgeting practices increase the risk that funds will not be used productively and that tax levies will be higher than necessary.

The Treasurer did not comply with the bylaws that require getting approval before making disbursements, even though all Company checks had two authorized signatures. The Treasurer provided the Board with a list of cash disbursements on each monthly Treasurer's report for bills that were previously paid. However, other than the Treasurer, Company officials did not review documentation supporting each cash disbursement to ensure payments were for valid Company purposes. Therefore, we reviewed all cash disbursements for our audit period, consisting of 106 disbursements totaling $17,665, which included 92 checks totaling $17,285 and 14 petty cash disbursements totaling $380. We found that 28 disbursements totaling $5,293 were not adequately supported, which prevented us from determining if these disbursements were for valid Company purposes.

While Council and City officials have taken certain steps to improve the City's operations and reduce its related costs, they did not ensure that all City operations were functioning at the lowest cost to taxpayers. Refuse expenditures consistently exceeded revenues and health insurance expenditures have increased. Furthermore, through 2014, the City's outstanding debt included payments for items that are beyond their useful lives. City officials were aware of these issues and are developing plans to reduce these expenditures. In addition, we identified a number of opportunities related to non-property tax services that could help improve the City's fiscal health. Specifically, we identified opportunities for City officials to consider for sewer and refuse operations, building permits, parking operations and, potentially, gross receipts tax revenues.

District officials need to improve the budget process to ensure general fund budget estimates and fund balance are reasonable. From 2010-11 through 2014-15, District officials planned operating deficits and appropriated $11.7 million of fund balance each year. However, because officials' consistently overestimated expenditures, the District experienced operating surpluses totaling more than $4 million over these years and, therefore, used only $115,765 (1 percent) of the appropriated fund balance to finance operations. District officials also set aside $3 million in four reserves that have not been used. Unrestricted fund balance for these five years ranged between 13 and 15 percent of the ensuing year's appropriations, exceeding the statutory limit. As a result, District officials missed the opportunity to reduce the tax levy.

The District needs to improve its controls over payroll processing. Although the payroll clerk performs procedures to double check her own work, the review process should involve someone independently reviewing payroll prior to processing. Such a review could include comparing payroll source documents, such as signed time sheets, to payroll reports to verify that hours or days worked agree and reviewing payroll change reports which show the changes from one payroll to the next. Although we did not identify any material discrepancies, the lack of adequate oversight of the payroll clerk's duties increases the risk that errors or irregularities in the processing of payrolls could occur and remain undetected, or not be detected in a timely manner.

The Board and District management effectively managed the District's financial condition. The District's unrestricted fund balance from fiscal years 2010-11 through 2013-14 remained consistent at approximately 1 percent of the subsequent year's appropriations. For the 2014-15 fiscal year, the unrestricted fund balance was $4,237,425, or 4 percent of the subsequent year's appropriations, which is a significant increase from prior years. The District's 2014-15 fiscal year financial position improved significantly primarily because the District sold a school building. The District sold the building for $8.5 million and put $5 million of the proceeds toward the funding of a voter-approved capital project for improvements to the high school and middle school. We also reviewed the District's 2015-16 adopted budget and determined that revenue and expenditure estimates appeared reasonable. We commend the Board and District management for taking positive action in managing the District's financial condition.

District officials have been improving nonresident tuition billing procedures. However, we reviewed all of the quarterly invoices totaling more than $2.9 million for our audit period and found that the District underbilled Ripley Central School District by $41,125. In addition, one nonresident student was not billed for $14,438 in tuition costs. District officials also do not regularly review and monitor the tuition rate being charged in comparison to net costs per student and the State-calculated tuition rate. However, we determined that the District's tuition rate appeared reasonable.