We found that County officials did ensure certain cash receipts were properly collected, recorded and deposited. The Board appointed standing committees to provide oversight of their respective departments' cash receipts processes, and each of the departments we tested also have their own written procedures. Additionally, the specific procedures established within each department are tailored to its operations to ensure moneys are collected, recorded and deposited intact and within a timely manner. We commend County officials for their attention to developing good cash receipts control systems and ensuring compliance with these systems.

Based on the results of our review, we found that the significant revenue and expenditure projections in the preliminary budget are not reasonable. The District's proposed budget for payroll, health insurance, retirement, debt and utilities exceeded the District's supporting documentation for those items. Consequently, the District has overestimated appropriations by $3.3 million. In addition, the District plans to use $2 million of their retirement contribution reserve fund. However, this reserve can only be used to pay for retirement contributions. The 2015-16 estimated cost for retirement are approximately $760,000. Therefore, using the remaining $1.2 million to fund other expenditures of the District is not an appropriate use of this reserve. Our estimate of revenues, excluding the use of fund balance and reserves, is less than our estimate of total appropriations by approximately $2.2 million which would create an operating deficit for the third consecutive year. The District's preliminary budget complies with the property tax levy limit.

District officials continually underestimated revenues and overestimated appropriations when they prepared and adopted budgets for the last three fiscal years, even though this poor budgeting practice was brought to the District's attention during our last two annual budget reviews. As a result, fund balance was higher than needed. Specifically, we found that the percent of unassigned fund balance as a percentage of the ensuing year's appropriations exceeded the 4 percent allowed by statute in two of the last three completed fiscal years. Furthermore, the District's practice of consistently appropriating fund balance that is not needed to finance operations is, in effect, a reservation of fund balance that is not provided for by statute and a circumvention of the statutory limit imposed on the level of unreserved, unappropriated fund balance. Better budgeting would have allowed operations to stay at the intended level with lower taxes. Finally, as of June 30, 2014, two of the reserves totaling $1.14 million appear to be overfunded. Specifically, the unemployment insurance reserve had a balance of $116,459, which is over 16.5 times the average annual expenditures and the capital reserve had a balance of $1,024,119 with no planned future expenditures.

Based on the results of our review, except for the following matters, we found that the significant revenue and expenditure projections in the tentative budget for the general, electric, library and parking funds are reasonable. However, the water and sewer funds' tentative budgets are not balanced and include a deficit of approximately $257,000 in the water fund and $155,000 in the sewer fund. Village officials told us they recognized the deficit and planned to raise water and sewer rates and reduce some expenditures in May 2015 to make up the difference. We recommend the Board address these deficits in order to avoid adopting budgets that include appropriations without sufficient financing sources. We had a similar finding in last year's budget review; the Board did adjust the rate structure in both funds and as a result of the actions taken by the Board, the funds are not projected to incur deficits for the current fiscal year. The Village's preliminary budget complies with the property tax levy limit.

Based on the results of our review, we found that the significant revenue and expenditure projections in the proposed budgets are reasonable. The District's proposed budget complies with the property tax levy limit.

We found $306,175 in school districts billings were not paid timely because the resident school districts had denied payment due to lack of proof of residency or other enrollment issues. We also found that because the School officials do not prepare the tuition bills on the FTE basis, the School did not receive $120,529 of funds due from the Albany City School District (ACSD) until the School had completed its end-of-year reconciliation. Furthermore, inaccuracies in the end-of-year reconciliation, identified after the reconciliation bill had been paid by the ACSD, led to an excess of $67,574 being billed to the ACSD.

Based on the results of our review, we found that the significant revenue and expenditure projections in the proposed budget are reasonable. The District's proposed budget complies with the property tax levy limit set by statute.

Based on the results of our review, we found the significant revenue and expenditure projections in the proposed budget are reasonable. Based on the 2015-16 proposed budget, the Village will have exhausted 91.32 percent of its taxing authority. The Village's ability to rely on real property taxes as an increased revenue source in the future is limited. The Village's proposed budget includes a tax levy of $64,397,475, which exceeds the allowable tax levy limit. The Village's proposed budget includes the use of $500,000 from the tax stabilization reserve to lessen the real property tax levy. The Board has not yet adopted a resolution to use the reserve.

A delay in State aid reimbursements for the Tuscarora Indian School (School) has caused cash flow problems for the District. The District reports a receivable for this State aid; however, the receivable is not liquid. Without the State aid, the District used general fund resources and cash flow borrowing to finance School operations. The District has also issued a significant amount of short-term cash flow borrowing during the past three fiscal years. Furthermore, the District's poor management of funds in the debt service fund may have resulted in avoidable debt service costs of more than $500,000.

The prior Justice did not accurately record and report money to the Justice Court Fund in a timely manner. Additionally, the prior Justice did not prepare monthly bank reconciliations or accountabilities, properly account for bail money held by the Court or accurately report all fines and surcharges collected to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Further, the Board did not properly audit or document its audit of the prior Justice's records and reports. As a result, there was an overage of $321 in the prior Justice's Court bank accounts. The current Justice is taking corrective action to address these weaknesses.

The Town Board did not properly manage the Town's general fund balance from 2011 through 2014. For those years, the Board adopted unrealistic budgets that were essentially the same budgets year after year. As a result, the Board accumulated general fund balance while raising taxes. However, beginning with the 2015 budget, the Board plans to reduce the general fund balance to benefit taxpayers. To do so, it is cutting the general fund tax levy by 90 percent and appropriating $187,000 of fund balance. However, the general fund tax levy reduction coincides with an increase in the highway fund tax levy of over 30 percent, or $121,942. Additionally, the Board did not ensure that purchases were at the best price and all disbursements were for proper Town purposes. There was no evidence that quotes were obtained from more than one party for foreseen purchases of less than $2,500, or that pre-approval from the Board was obtained for purchases over $2,500, as required by Board resolution. In addition, no one verified that checks were for proper Town purposes or independently reviewed bank reconciliations. Further, the Board did not perform an annual audit of the Supervisor's books and records.

It is unclear whether all police officers work the correct number of hours as provided by the police collective bargaining agreement (CBA). Specifically, the CBA provides that “the standard work week shall consist of 40 hours,” which would be equivalent to patrol officers having to work 2,080 hours during a calendar year. The current work schedule used for patrol officers, however, results in these officers working eight days less per year. In that case, the City would have paid patrol officers approximately $157,000 for 675 days that they did not work in the 2012, 2013 and 2014 calendar years. Annual overtime costs may be reduced by as much as $85,000 if these officers were to work the eight additional days. It is also unclear from language in the CBA whether police officer's uniform allowance, longevity payment and education incentive payments are to be included in the calculation of the hourly rate of pay police officers receive for lump sum payments for certain unused leave time. The City could save approximately $6,800 annually if these items are not to be included in the hourly rate used to calculate payments for unused leave and eight-day pay. Finally, Fire Department time and attendance records were not always accurately maintained. We identified numerous errors due to the incorrect recording of work hours and leave usage. We also found that City officials do not ensure that firefighters work their required annual hours as they did not properly make up all of the hours that they owed to other firefighters due to shift trading.

Based on the results of our review, we found that the significant revenue and expenditure projections in the preliminary budget are reasonable. The District's preliminary budget complies with the property tax levy limit.

Based on the results of our review, we found that the significant revenue and expenditure projections in the tentative budget are reasonable, except for appropriations for tuition fees for high school students, charter school tuition fees and social security and Medicare taxes. In addition, we believe revenues from tuition payments received from other districts may be overestimated and caution District officials about the appropriation of fund balance to finance the 2015-16 budget.

Based on the results of our review, we found that the significant revenue and expenditure projections in the preliminary budget are reasonable. However, the District's proposed budget is $274,899 higher than the NYS preliminary estimate. In addition, the District's proposed budget for health insurance is $164,625 higher than the District's supporting documentation for health insurance estimates. We also recommend that the Board and District officials make a provision for the repayment of the $200,000 of building aid and continue to monitor the use of unexpended fund balance. The District's preliminary budget complies with the property tax levy limit.

Based on the results of our review, we found that the significant revenue and expenditure projections in the preliminary budget are reasonable. The District's preliminary budget complies with the property tax levy limit.

The Board needs to improve its oversight of District operations. The Board has not complied with provisions of the law related to presentation of proposed budgets and the establishment of reserves. The Board also did not update or enforce its procurement policy and did not properly audit claims. In addition, the Board did not receive budget status reports, and bank reconciliation reports were not properly prepared. Without adequate oversight, District resources are not properly safeguarded and are at greater risk of loss resulting from fraud and abuse.

Three of the District's five Fire Commissioners have not attended the mandatory training. One Commissioner was re-elected in 2012 while another Commissioner was re-elected in 2011, but neither completed the required training. The third Commissioner, re-elected in 2010, registered for the class but did not attend even though the District paid for the class. In addition, the District did not always use competitive methods to procure goods and services, as required by General Municipal Law and its procurement policy. The District paid 393 vendors a total of $3,789,711 during the audit period. We selected and reviewed payments to 20 vendors who were paid approximately $574,502 and found that the District did not use competitive methods when procuring goods and services from 12 vendors that were collectively paid $414,878. Additionally, the Board did not monitor payments made to four vendors that received a total of $36,247 more than the terms of their agreements with the District. The Board also did not consistently enter into written agreements with the District's vendors. Without a written agreement, District officials do not have a means of determining whether rates charged are accurate. Finally, the Board did not properly use standardization as a method of efficiently procuring goods and services.

The District was able to reduce net costs by approximately $452,000 by paying tuition and sending students in grades 7 through 12 to a neighboring school district. Due to the expected cost savings, the District decided to increase the in-house programming for students in kindergarten through sixth grade, costing approximately $264,000, reducing the net cost savings to approximately $188,000. In addition, the Board adopted a budget for 2013-14 that reflected the change in costs due to tuition. The 2013-14 budget also reflected that the District anticipated to have an operating deficit of $200,000 and would, therefore, use available fund balance to fund expenditures. However, the District experienced a $134,600 operating surplus thus further increasing its fund balance. As a result, as of June 30, 2014, the District's unrestricted fund balance exceeded the statutory limitation by $491,912 or 6 percent. Further, the District did not appropriate or use unemployment insurance reserve funds to pay for related expenditures or reevaluate its need to maintain such a substantial balance in the reserve, which totaled $600,515 at the end of 2013-14. Finally, as of August 28, 2014, the Board had not yet adopted a multiyear financial plan.

The Board should improve internal controls over cash receipts collected at the circulation desk to adequately safeguard Library assets. Although the Board adopted a circulation policy that contains procedures related to collecting cash receipts at the circulation desk, the procedures were insufficient because they were not comprehensive and did not provide adequate guidance and effective internal controls. For example, the procedures did not establish which employees were authorized to collect cash receipts, the processes for determining accountability over cash receipts recorded in the system or the cash register and stated that one employee was required to count the cash collected at the conclusion of the day. In addition, employees were not collecting cash receipts as directed by the policy, because Library officials did not effectively oversee collections.