The purpose of our review was to determine whether County officials have established appropriate controls to safeguard and account for court and trust funds for the period January 1, 2017 through February 11, 2020.

The Board adopted unrealistic budget estimates and did not effectively monitor fund balance.

The Board and District officials did not develop and adopt a structurally balanced budget for the 2018-19 fiscal year.

District officials need to improve their budgeting practices to more effectively manage the general fund balance and reserve funds.

The Board did not adequately oversee the Treasurer's work or require annual audits of the Treasurer's records and reports.

The Village lacked effective procedures to ensure water and sewer charges were accurately billed, collected and enforced.

Significant revenue and expenditure projections in the tentative budget are reasonable. We estimate the 2020-21 water and sewer collections will be approximately $4.3 million, which is approximately $190,000 less than budgeted for water revenues and approximately $290,000 less than budgeted for sewer revenues. The Village's tentative budget includes a tax levy of $12,426,613 which is $471,753 above the limit established by law.

The Board did not develop and manage a comprehensive investment program to ensure interest earnings were maximized.

The Board and District officials need to improve their budgeting practices to more effectively manage the general fund balance and reserve funds.

The Board of Directors did not provide proper oversight of the use of grant funds and credit cards.

The Town Clerk (Clerk) did not record, deposit, remit and report collections in a timely and accurate manner and the Board did not ensure that Town credit cards were used for appropriate purposes.

District officials accurately allocated personnel costs between District and State grant activities.

Town officials did not always competitively procure goods and services.

The Town Clerk did not remit collections or always deposit collections in a timely manner. Taxes collected were remitted bi-weekly to the Supervisor in January of both years instead of weekly resulting in $550,050 in 2018 and $693,826 in 2019 being remitted to the Supervisor in an untimely manner. $100,000 in 2018 and $100,000 in 2019 was remitted untimely to the Treasurer. The Clerk deposited 21 tax payments totaling $351,529 in 2018 from two to 18 days after receipt instead of within 24 hours. In four instances totaling $1,763 in 2018 and one instance totaling $326 in 2019 the Clerk did not deposit Clerk fees within the required time frame.

The Board and District officials did not properly manage fund balance. The District's financial reserve plan states that the District will reduce surplus fund balance as recommended by our previous Report and the Board's fund balance policy states that it will strive to ensure that surplus fund balance does not exceed 4 percent. However, neither of these internal controls were sufficient to prevent the District from continuing to accumulate excessive surplus fund balance. The Board and District officials asserted to us that they intentionally plan to maintain surplus fund balance in excess of the legal limit. Surplus fund balance continued to consistently exceed the 4 percent limit by an annual average of 9 percentage points, or approximately $2 million. The Board and District officials consistently overestimated appropriations and appropriated fund balance for planned operating deficits that never occurred.

The Board, District officials and the claims auditor could improve the audit of claims. We found of the 50 claims totaling $528,778 reviewed, 45 claims totaling $338,391 had at least one exception, such as lack of itemized receipts or invoices and no evidence of bids or quotes. The claims auditor did not have well-defined duties and did not report claims audit results directly to the Board.

District officials need to improve the separation payment procedures. Officials paid five former administrators a total of $24,989 for accrued unused vacation leave upon separation from the District based on past practice, even though their individual employment agreements did not provide for such payments. Officials did not realize the former Superintendent was to reimburse the District $2,813 for previously received tuition assistance upon his separation from the District. The District received the $2,813 payment from the former Superintendent in February 2020. Had District officials reviewed the employment agreement terms and payment calculations for accrued unused vacation leave prior to employee separations, they may have avoided making payments that were not specified in the agreements, detected and prevented the erroneous underpayment of $773 to the former Superintendent and identified the reimbursement he owed for tuition assistance upon his separation.

The Board did not provide sufficient oversight of the Fonda-Fultonville Joint Wastewater Facility (Facility). The Villages of Fonda and Fultonville entered into an amended intermunicipal agreement on May 1, 1997 to operate the Facility. The Board did not: Act in accordance with the intermunicipal agreement. Ensure that the former Chairman and former Fiscal Officer maintained adequate accounting records or provide adequate oversight over financial operations. Routinely meet to audit and approve claims for payment as required by the agreement. Approve and monitor vendor contracts. In addition, due to inadequate records, the former Fiscal Officer was unable to provide the Board with any financial reports or accounting of money collected and disbursed during our audit period.

District officials did not transparently fund or use reserve funds. The Board and District officials did not include all funding of reserves in the annual budget or publish the required legal notices when using reserves, District voters were not properly informed and did not have the opportunity to voice their opinion on the District's funding and use of reserves. The District's annual budget included $100,000 each year labeled as “transfer to other funds” which officials told us was intended to fund the capital reserves. During this same period, capital reserves were funded with over $1 million, or $500,000 (50 percent) more than budgeted. In particular, since 2016, the District has funded reserves with an average of $210,000 annually.

Cash receipts were not remitted timely, accurately and intact and records were inadequate. Cash receipts were not remitted timely and intact, resulting in discrepancies with 47 of 76 remittances (62 percent) to the Town Clerk. Center cash collection records were inadequate and incomplete. We found that Town officials were unable to locate 41 special permits issued and three press-numbered receipts were missing from the receipt books.