District officials adequately monitored the District's financial condition and maintained fiscal stability. We analyzed the District's financial condition from 2009-10 through 2013-14. The District had operating surpluses from 2009-10 through 2011-12, ranging from $763,500 to $1.3 million and operating deficits of $943,600 and $1.2 million during 2012-13 and 2013-14. During 2013-14 and 2014-15, the District had consecutive planned operating deficits while maintaining fund balances of approximately 4 percent of the ensuing year's appropriations. In addition, restricted fund balance went from $12.5 million in 2009-10 to $10.7 million in 2013-14. This resulted in total fund balance decreasing from $19.3 million in 2009-10 to $18.9 million as of June 30, 2014. From 2009-10 through 2013-14, these items made up an average of 90 percent of the restricted fund balance. We examined the District's bases for restricting fund balances for tax certiorari, retirement contribution and compensated absences and found that the amounts reserved were reasonable

The Board did not review and the Committee did not audit the Treasurer's records or bank statements for the majority of our audit period. The Treasurer did not prepare monthly bank reconciliations and neither the Board nor the Committee reviewed bank statements and canceled checks to ensure that the Treasurer had properly recorded all transactions and reconciled cash balances. In addition, the Board did not conduct a proper audit of claims in accordance with Company bylaws. The reports prepared by the Treasurer did not always accurately reflect the total deposits or payments made from Company accounts. As a result, the Treasurer was able to misappropriate Company funds over a nine-year period, totaling at least $69,705. We found that at least $50,895 in cash receipts were not deposited and the Treasurer made 67 payments totaling $18,810 which do not appear to be for legitimate Company purposes. The Treasurer deposited 13 personal checks totaling $6,337 to the Company's checking account which may have been attempts toward repayment of the misappropriated funds.

We examined all purchases totaling approximately $1.5 million made by the Library System on behalf of or for the use by member libraries during our audit period and found that officials either used a competitive method or made purchases using State or Westchester County contracts. However, the Library System's purchasing policy needs to be improved because it does not address purchases made on behalf of member libraries. The policy addresses purchases made by the Library System for itself by indicating that staff must use competition when making purchases of $100,000 or more and must obtain quotes when making purchases of lesser amounts. It does not address General Municipal Law's bidding or best value requirements when procuring goods and services for the use and benefit of the member public libraries. As a result, Library System personnel do not have adequate guidance when making these purchases.

We verified relevant factors used to calculate the invoiced amounts to all school districts of residence and did not identify any discrepancies in the School's calculations with the exception of special education rates. While the accounting firm (Firm) that the School contracted with to prepare billings did review the original rates as established by SED prior to issuing the original bills, the Firm did not calculate revised bills after the rates were adjusted by SED. As a result, three school districts were underbilled by a total of $2,260. We then selected 15 students for further testing to determine if billings to the school districts of residence were accurate and supported. Overall, we found that the billings were accurate. However, we found the School did not have sufficient documentation of residency for eight of the 15 students tested. In addition, the Board has not periodically evaluated the existing procurement policy in order to ensure Board expectations are met and that purchases are properly procured. We reviewed the School's purchases from all 15 vendors that were subject to the Board's purchasing policy requirements. These vendors were paid approximately $433,000. We found the Board did not obtain the Board policy-required three written quotes from 11 vendors that were paid $297,176 and did not approve contracts with 11 vendors totaling $332,515. As a result, we reviewed one claim voucher from each vendor. We found no significant exceptions.

SCIDA generally monitored and evaluated the performance of firms or businesses for which benefits and incentives were granted. We reviewed 10 projects and found that four did not meet their job creation goals. Although SCIDA had provisions to reduce assistance for the businesses that did not meet their goals, SCIDA did not reduce the assistance for the four associated businesses because the Board did not review the performance of the businesses to determine whether or not to reduce assistance. Additionally, each of the 10 projects had a PILOT agreement that required SCIDA to bill the associated businesses and collect and remit payments to the affected taxing jurisdictions. However, SCIDA did not bill one project for 2014; based on our reading of the PILOT agreement, the affected taxing jurisdictions may have been underpaid by $108,000. In March 2015, as a result of our audit and various legal opinions, the Board suspended its grant and loan program. SCIDA had issued 11 grants totaling $964,000 and made three loans totaling $1.2 million with its own money to local governments and private entities. Principal amounts totaling $350,000 had been repaid and two of the three loans had outstanding balances totaling $850,000. General Municipal Law contains no authority for IDAs to provide grants or make loans to local governments or private entities using their own money.

The Board did not enforce the financial provisions in its bylaws and did not adopt policies and procedures to establish internal controls over cash receipts – including timely deposit and proper accounting of all fundraising revenues and activities – and disbursements for purchasing, claims processing and audit, credit card use, stipends, gifts and service awards. Officials stated that they believed such policies could not be adopted outside of the bylaw provisions and, because amending the bylaws could entail a tedious process, they did not do so. In addition, the President did not appoint a Finance Committee to perform the key financial oversight duties required by the bylaws, and no other Department officials performed them. Neither the Treasurer nor the Board prepared the required annual financial reports; no Board or committee members audited bills before they were paid; and neither the President nor the Board required or reviewed detailed reports from each fundraising committee to ensure that all revenues were deposited and that both revenues and expenditures were properly recorded and reported.

The purpose of our audit was to assess the financial condition of the five regional OTB Corporations to determine if it has continued to deteriorate and whether officials have developed and implemented plans to benefit the Corporations’ financial condition for the period January 1, 2009 through August 31, 2014.

The purpose of our audit was to assess software management and website, web application and supporting server vulnerabilities for the period September 1, 2013 through April 30, 2015.

From 2012 through 2014, the District gradually restored its unassigned fund balance from a deficit of $206,815 at the end of 2011 to $64,138 at the end of 2014 and has continued this positive trend in the 2015 budget. The District's past financial problems date to an operating deficit in 2010 that resulted in an unrestricted fund balance deficit of $61,233 at the beginning of 2011. The problem worsened when the Board adopted a structurally imbalanced 2011 budget that included an appropriation of $150,000 of fund balance which the District did not have. The District ended 2011 with an unrestricted fund balance deficit of $196,815. Since the end of the 2011 fiscal year, the District has steadily improved its financial condition. Between 2012 and 2014, the District increased its tax levy and recognized additional equipment sales revenue, and also had positive expenditure budget variances totaling $268,796. As a result, the District had operating surpluses, totaling $449,443, and gradually replenished its unassigned fund balance. As of December 31, 2014, the District reported $64,138 in unassigned fund balance (equivalent to 2 percent of the next year's appropriations) and its reported reserves were fully funded. While these improvements represent significant progress, we urge the Board to continue building the District's unassigned fund balance to ensure an adequate cushion for cash flow issues or unanticipated expenditures.

District officials adequately monitored the school's financial operations. However, the settlement of a tax certiorari claim and subsequent issuance of debt to pay the claim caused a decrease in the District's unassigned fund balance for fiscal year ending June 30, 2014. During the fiscal year ending June 30, 2014, a tax certiorari dating back to 2006 was settled, resulting in an unexpected $3 million payment by the District. The District had not included payments of tax certiorari judgments in the budget. The payment was financed mainly with a bond anticipation note (BAN) of almost $2.9 million until the issuance of long-term bonds. The District converted the BAN to long-term financing in the 2014-15 fiscal year. The result of issuing the BAN in one fiscal year and converting it to long-term financing in the subsequent year caused nearly a $650,000 deficit unassigned fund balance in the general fund as of June 30, 2014. Had the BAN been converted to long term financing in the 2013-14 fiscal year, the general fund unassigned fund balance as of June 30, 2014 would have been more than $2.2 million. The District's deficit unassigned fund balance as of June 30, 2014 resulted from the timing of issuing debt to cover an expense for which there was no budget appropriation. The impact of that transaction was reversed in the subsequent fiscal year and the District now shows a positive unassigned fund balance. The District estimates the general fund unassigned fund balance at June 30, 2015 will be approximately $2.3 million dollars.

During the audit period, the Village produced 54 million gallons of water at a cost of approximately $440,000 and generated revenue totaling approximately $388,000 but could not account for 22 million gallons (41 percent) of the water it produced. The Village billed customers for 30 million gallons and had authorized, unbilled usage of 2 million gallons, for a total of 32 million gallons of water recognized as consumed. This significant water loss occurred because the Board and Superintendent have not taken adequate steps to identify and reduce the unaccounted-for water within the Village's system. Village officials do not have written procedures for reconciling the water produced by the Village's water system to the amount billed. Annually, the Superintendent prepares a handwritten reconciliation comparing the total amount of water produced to the total amount of water billed to estimate the approximate water loss. However, he estimated the amounts of water used for municipal purposes and to flush the system − rather than actual usage − and did not develop a plan to address the causes of significant unaccounted-for water. Further, the Superintendent did not report the significant water loss that he calculated to the Board. As a result, the Board was unaware of the loss.

The District does not have written policies or procedures related to the preparation of the annual budget or the funding of reserves. As a result, the Board did not prepare District budgets in the format prescribed by OSC and based on reasonable estimates. Due to the unrealistic budget estimates, the District generated operating surpluses totaling $648,570 from 2010 through 2014. Of this amount, $620,984 was transferred to the District's reserves, in addition to $1.275 million appropriated through the budget process for the purpose of funding the reserves. Operating surplus and excess reserves result from the levy of excessive property taxes.

The Board adopted budgets from 2009-10 through 2013-14 that appropriated fund balance to finance operations. However, because the Board overestimated expenditures in those budgets, none of the fund balance that was appropriated was used in four of these fiscal years. As a result, the District's fund balance increased 13 percent from $10.7 million in 2010-11 to $12.1 million in 2013-14. Further, the District had three reserves totaling $5 million at the end of 2013-14 which were funded by transfers of surplus funds at year-end rather than through appropriations in budgets that were voted on by taxpayers. Of these, $2.9 million from the retirement contribution reserve accounts were excessive. With the inclusion of fund balance and excessive reserves, the District's fund balance has been in excess of the 4 percent allowed by law ranging from 6.65 percent to 10.59 percent. As a result, District officials may have missed the opportunity to accumulate less fund balance, reduce the tax levy and increase the transparency of the budgeting process.

The purpose of our audit was to determine whether school districts are adequately controlling access to their Student Grading Systems (Systems) for the period July 1, 2013 through May 1, 2015.

The District had 39 employees who retired, resigned or otherwise separated from the District during our audit period. We reviewed the terms of separation for each employee to determine those eligible for a separation payment and if the payments were properly calculated per Board-approved contract terms. We found 18 of the 39 employees were eligible for separation payments totaling $400,311. While these payments generally conformed to the terms of the written agreements, we did find the District paid an employee $15,895 that was not consistent with the written agreement, improperly paid Business Administrator B a separation payment totaling $1,777, and underpaid one employee $2,323. The result of these transactions was a net overpayment of $15,349.

The Town lacked comprehensive policies and procedures over water and sewer charges and, as a result, there were internal control weaknesses over the billing, collection and enforcement of water and sewer charges. The Clerk to the Supervisor performed all duties related to water and sewer charges without adequate oversight. In addition, the Town was not properly billing all parcels in the Westport Water District for operation and maintenance charges in accordance with the Board-adopted water code. As a result, the Town did not realize all potential revenues that it was entitled to. Lastly, the Board did not perform an annual audit of the individuals involved with billing, collecting and accounting for water and sewer charges.

We found that seven employees were paid $101,325 for unused vacation time without adequate leave time records to support the payroll calculations. For example, the former Deputy Mayor and Budget Director were paid $50,001 and $40,653, respectively, with only a memo from the former Mayor stating the amount of vacation time available and a calculation of the separation payment. City officials also need to improve the internal controls over the payroll process. The City's payroll recordkeeping processes are not consistent in all City departments. We found instances where time records were not kept, salaries did not agree to authorizations and employees in the Department of General Services (DGS) were not working their scheduled time by leaving before the end of their work day. As a result, the City could potentially overpay its DGS employees by approximately $124,000 due to an informal practice of Department management allowing employees to punch out eight minutes early each work day.

We reviewed 25 projects totaling approximately $535 million and found deficiencies in NCIDA's evaluation and approval of businesses seeking IDA benefits, its determination of benefits provided and its subsequent monitoring of the businesses for compliance. For example, the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) information prepared for each proposed project did not include a CBA ratio calculation, and NCIDA officials did not establish any policy or procedure to define the information or explain how a CBA ratio could be calculated and applied in the evaluation process. Therefore, evaluation criteria may not be consistently applied, and the basis for approval or rejection of businesses may not be clear. NCIDA officials also did not require periodic reporting of necessary information from businesses or verify the information that was provided, and therefore did not adequately monitor projects to determine if goals were met or remedial action was needed. As a result, PILOTs totaling $69,513 were billed incorrectly. Further, NCIDA under-reported inaccurate PILOTs totaling a net of $166,114 on its annual report to the New York State Authorities Budget Office for the year ending December 31, 2013.

TCIDA had no employees and instead the Board relied on Tompkins County Area Development, Inc. (TCAD) employees to carry out TCIDA's mission without making independent judgments. Although the Board approved the IDA projects submitted to it, the Board did not provide adequate oversight during its project approval process. Therefore the Board could not be certain if TCAD staff submitted all projects for its approval and projects could have been given benefits without its knowledge. Additionally, the Board was not sufficiently involved in monitoring various aspects of the projects. Although three businesses did not meet their job creation goals, the Board did not formally document its decision not to recapture benefits. Further, two local taxing authorities did not bill two businesses enough for PILOT payments. As result, the businesses were underbilled by more than $26,000 and the Board was unaware that, as a party to the PILOT agreements, it was responsible for overseeing this process. Lastly, the Board did not review or approve the required annual reports to ensure accuracy or completeness. As a result, the Board cannot be sure that the community is receiving the expected economic benefits.

We found that WCIDA did not adequately evaluate, approve or monitor projects, and did not properly bill for administrative fees. The Board did not consistently follow criteria established in the UTEP or compare submitted project applications to such criteria. WCIDA officials also did not ensure that all projects were permissible IDA projects in accordance with statutory requirements, and did not request sufficient data or verify the data reported by projects annually to evaluate project performance. Therefore, the Board cannot be assured that the community is receiving the expected benefits or that WCIDA is collecting all revenue to which it is entitled.