We reviewed the Clerk's 2019 real property tax collections totaling approximately $1.4 million and found that the Clerk did not remit collections to the Supervisor and Treasurer in a timely manner. The Clerk did not remit collections to the Supervisor weekly or to the Treasurer by the 15th of the month as required. Additionally, as of September 5, 2019, the Clerk had not remitted interest and penalties related to tax collections totaling approximately $2,780 to the Supervisor. Finally, the Clerk did not always issue receipts or retain adequate evidence of receipt for tax payments collected or to establish tax payment dates.

The Board authorized fiscal year-end interfund transfers totaling $1.2 million to be used for a capital project which had not yet been approved by District voters. In addition, District officials overestimated appropriations from 2015-16 through 2018-19. We project appropriations were estimated more reasonably in 2019-20 but certain account lines continued to be overestimated. We also found that the unrestricted fund balance ranged between 5.9 and 9.8 percent of the ensuing years' appropriations, exceeding the 4 percent statutory limit. Finally, District officials did not develop, maintain, update and review a formal multiyear capital plan in conjunction with the projects approved by District voters in March 2019.

The Board-adopted purchasing policies were not updated and deficient. We found that all 10 purchase and public works contracts we reviewed totaling approximately $1.1 million were procured in accordance with the District's purchasing policies and statutory requirements. However, of the 15 purchase contracts we reviewed totaling $76,378 that did not exceed the competitive bidding threshold, 11 purchase contracts (73 percent) totaling $56,624 were not procured in accordance with the purchasing policy. In addition, of the services obtained from seven professional service providers, who were paid a combined total of $178,247 during the audit period, the services from six providers, who were paid $163,497, were not procured in accordance with the purchasing policy.

The Department hired a bookkeeper to maintain the accounting records. However, Department officials did not clearly define the responsibilities for this position. The Treasurer did not provide sufficient oversight of the bookkeeper hired to account for the Department's financial transactions. In addition, 44 credit card charges totaling $5,087 were paid without sufficient supporting documentation. Thirty-five check collections totaling $26,751 were not deposited in a timely manner. Finally, the Department's audit committee did not audit the Treasurer's records as required in the bylaws.

Town officials did not adopt adequate policies and implement sufficient procedures to account for the Town's fuel inventory. In addition, officials did not monitor fuel use, which resulted in unaccounted-for fuel of 21,806 gallons of gasoline and diesel valued at $49,278. Finally, officials did not prepare periodic fuel reconciliations. Without the proper controls over fuel inventories in place, there is an increased risk that unleaded gasoline and diesel could have been stolen or misused.

The District has two above-ground fuel tanks, a 5,000 gallon diesel tank and a 1,000 gallon unleaded gasoline tank located at the District's bus garage. The Board did not establish policies to provide reasonable assurance that fuel was used for its intended purpose and properly accounted for. In addition, District officials did not design procedures to ensure fuel use and inventory records were properly maintained and reconciled. District officials also did not ensure that the fuel tanks were properly secured or in working order. In addition, the Transportation Supervisor did not perform fuel reconciliations, and our reconciliations resulted in unaccounted-for fuel totaling $8,034. Officials did not perform stick-measured readings to ensure fuel deliveries were accurate. Finally, while the Board did not enter into written shared service agreements with the Town of Moravia, Village of Moravia or two fire districts that receive fire protection services from the Moravia and Locke Fire Departments, District officials had informal arrangements allowing these entities to use District fuel.

The purchasing policy is outdated and inconsistent with purchasing procedures and is not communicated to all College staff involved in the purchasing process. In addition, the purchasing policy and procedures do not address the solicitation of competition for professional services and insurance. The College also made nearly $1 million of purchases without seeking competition. In addition, we examined 26 purchases totaling $257,635 subject to the College's policy for verbal and written quotes and found that the required number of quotes were not obtained for 20 of the purchases totaling $204,235 (79 percent). Finally, the College did not issue requests for proposals to procure its general liability, crime and commercial insurance coverage totaling $333,199 and services provided by all six of the professional service providers totaling $368,817.

The Justices did not deposit 234 out of 720 fine and fee receipts totaling $31,056 within 72 hours. They also did not prepare monthly accountability reports and bank reconciliations. We reviewed all 48 monthly reports by the current Justices that were submitted to the Justice Court Fund (JCF) during our audit period and determined none were reviewed by the Justices prior to being submitted to JCF. Because the Justices review their monthly report after it has been submitted to JCF and then sign the checks, fines and fees are not always remitted by the 10th of the ensuing month. Finally, the Justices did not forward 34 out of 48 remittances to the Village totaling $523,381 within 10 days of the ensuing month.

The Town lacked adequate procedures to ensure employees' leave accrual records were accurately maintained. We reviewed 15 employees' leave accrual records during the audit period and found that none were accurately maintained. As a result, six employees were paid for 110.5 hours of leave time to which they were not entitled, resulting in overpayments totaling $2,288. We also found that, as of May 31, 2019, the 15 employees' leave accrual balances were overstated by 701.75 hours, valued at $15,253 and understated by 86.5 hours, valued at $1,484. We found that multiple employees were responsible for manually accounting for employees' leave accrual records and/or their own records with limited to no oversight. In addition, officials did not perform independent periodic reviews of employee leave accrual balances to ensure their accuracy.

Although City officials developed informal procedures related to the security of the water system, they did not have any written policies or procedures. There were no policies and procedures to document security roles and responsibilities for employees, vendors and consultants; explain appropriate use of mobile storage devices, such as USB flash drives; or require monitoring and logging of networked and Internet-facing devices. Because there were no written policies and procedures, officials could not ensure employees were aware of or understood what was expected of them in maintaining the security of the water system. In addition, City officials did not provide water system employees with IT security awareness training. The IT cybersecurity community identifies people as the weakest link in the chain to secure data and IT systems. Officials cannot protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data and computer systems without ensuring that employees understand their roles and responsibilities related to IT and data security.

The Comptroller did not perform bank reconciliations to ensure cash activity was properly accounted for and did not maintain accurate accounting records. The Board and Supervisor did not develop policies and procedures to ensure that the Town's accounting records and reports were complete, accurate and up-to-date. In addition to the differences between cash in the bank and cash recorded in the accounting records, we found many errors and inaccuracies in the accounting records. Due to deficiencies in the records, the Annual Update Documents, which are the Annual Financial Reports, were not filed on a timely basis. Also, we found a number of instances in which the direct deposit payments reported to the bank did not agree with the supporting payroll records. Finally, the Board did not annually audit the Comptroller's records.

The Town maintains two above-ground fuel tanks: a 4,000-gallon diesel fuel tank and a 2,000-gallon gasoline tank. From January 1, 2018 through March 21, 2019, the Town used 43,632 gallons of fuel (gasoline and diesel), valued at $93,324. However, Town officials were only able to account for 12,571 gallons (29 percent) of fuel, valued at $23,325. We also found that 733 out of 840 (87 percent) fuel usage documents were not completed or kept up to date by Highway Department personnel. Finally, the fuel access keys were not kept locked or in a controlled environment. Nine of the 26 fuel keys were unsecured inside the vehicles assigned.

The Legislature failed to adequately oversee the County's finances. The Legislature failed to address extended vacancies in key financial positions and deficiencies identified in previous audits. As a result, the County will pay at least $428,800 to several accounting firms to correct the accounting records. The Legislature also did not have policies and procedures in place to receive or ensure others received critical financial information, such as budget-to-actual reports or annual financial reports during our audit period. Because of the condition of the records, County officials filed the 2017 annual financial report with the State Comptroller's Office 519 days late.

The Board did not develop and manage a comprehensive investment program to ensure interest earnings were maximized within acceptable risk levels. During the audit period, Town officials did not solicit interest rate quotes from additional financial institutions or prepare any cash flow forecasts to estimate the amount of funds available for investment. During the audit period, operating and capital projects funds were deposited in 14 interest-bearing checking accounts, which received monthly interest rates of either .05 percent or .1 percent, and six non-interest-bearing checking accounts. As a result, the Town realized interest earnings of $4,703 related to its operating and capital projects funds during the audit period. We identified the funds that were not needed to pay operating and capital project expenditures each month and found that the Town could have invested available operating and capital projects funds averaging approximately $3.2 million during the audit period in another financial institution with higher available interest rates of between 1.13 percent and 2.33 percent, or an average interest rate of 1.89 percent during the audit period. If the Supervisor had invested these funds in this financial institution, interest earnings would have totaled $85,391 during the audit period (an increase of $80,688).

The Board-adopted travel policy authorizes the Superintendent or Superintendent's designee to define the necessary conference expenditures to be reimbursed within the policy's parameters. We found that the policy has limited parameters. In order to supplement the Board's policy, the Deputy Superintendent developed a travel regulation. The District's travel regulation was incomplete and allowed for reimbursements to regularly exceed the recommended United States General Services Administration (GSA) rates. We reviewed meal and lodging expenditures totaling approximately $43,000 and found that the District could have saved approximately $14,000, or 33 percent, if it followed meal and lodging rates established by GSA. We were unable to reasonably determine the combined overages for meals because of the District's lack of tracking. However, there were several specific instances where we were able to compare meals to the per diem amount per person. For example, the Kissimmee, FL GSA rate was established at $59 per day. We found that the Deputy Superintendent was reimbursed for meals totaling $96 per day, resulting in an overage of $37 per day.

Officials did not establish adequate policies or procedures for collecting, recording, safeguarding and depositing cash receipts. While some departments had informal write-ups describing their cash receipts process, they were not detailed or uniform among departments and were not distributed citywide. The Clerk's office forfeited 30 percent of its revenues ($17,241) collected from credit card payments due to the credit card vendor improperly withholding funds. Inadequately segregated duties caused an opportunity for theft of ice rink collections totaling $5,364. Of the 11 marina deposits we reviewed, we found that two should have included $160 in cash that was collected but not deposited. The Clerk did not remit all revenues collected to the finance department, which contributed to the Clerk's excessive bank balance of $23,309 as of June 30, 2017. Although the City implemented a point-of-sale system specific for parks and recreation usage, the rifle range was the only parks department that used it to process all collections. The City's cash collection function was decentralized. Cash receipts were collected at as many as 20 different locations and up to 11 different financial applications were used to record collections. Cash collected in the cashier's office, parks department and the Clerk's office was not recorded in a timely manner. Finally, cash was not deposited for as many as 93 days after being collected.

Although the purchase of property for historical preservation is legally allowed, Town officials did not use a thorough process. Town officials expended $361,000 acquiring property for historical preservation. Using the assessed value from July 1, 2012 and the equalization rate at the time of 80 percent, we calculated the property's full market value at the time of purchase was approximately $243,000, or $118,000 less than the price paid by the Town. The Supervisor told us that the Town purchased the building to ensure the building's historic preservation and provide economic development for the Town/Village Main Street. The Board and Supervisor told us that they planned to retain the undeveloped acreage, which includes a baseball field. Officials obtained a $200,000 grant to create a public trail from the Village to a nearby creek and surrounding land. The land associated with the building has also been designated for a waterfront revitalization program, which is a land and water use plan that will allow for waterfront development through application of grant funding.

The Board has not developed comprehensive written multiyear financial and capital plans or a fund balance and reserve policy. Although the Board prepared an informal capital purchase plan, it did not contain a detailed description of all capital projects for a six-year period, estimated cost, proposed method of financing, priority of projects and an estimate of effect on annual operating costs. Without comprehensive plans, the Board cannot assess expenditure commitments, revenue trends, financial risks and the affordability of new services and capital investments.

The Town did not have adequate segregation of duties over payroll. In addition, both supervisors who served during our audit period did not certify payrolls, or ensure that direct supervisors signed time sheets. The assistant to the bookkeeper maintains time records, processes payroll, handles paycheck distribution and remits withholdings of payroll taxes and appropriate benefit deductions to the Town without supervisory review or other compensating controls. We found numerous errors totaling $134,658 in the salaries, health benefits and leave time paid during our audit period. If payrolls had been properly reviewed, some of these errors may have been detected and corrected. Specifically, these overpayments were comprised of $94,242 in inaccurate or unauthorized overpayments due to miscalculations ($42,659), lack of required approvals ($47,162) and incorrect pay rates ($4,421), $21,016 in health insurance overpayments due to benefits that were not properly billed ($13,226) and benefits that were under-withheld from employees' pay ($7,790) and $19,400 in health insurance benefits paid to individuals who were ineligible.

School officials did not review tuition billing prepared by the School's contracted accounting firm. An incorrect formula was used to calculate State aid attributable to special education students, resulting in one district of residence being overbilled by more than $161,000 in the 2018-19 school year. In addition, School officials did not obtain the required residency documentation for 54 out of 55 students in our audit sample. We found that exceptions occurred because School officials have not been enforcing their enrollment requirement for proof of residency and do not have a procedure in place to request updates in subsequent years.