In 1991 the Village established a refuse collection district by local law. The Village includes the annual refuse charge on the Village tax bill. The refuse collection charges are based on the number of units in a dwelling. The Village has 1,011 units in 355 dwellings using the refuse collection services. Each dwelling is charged $396 per unit, which resulted in revenues of $400,356 for refuse collection services in the 2017-18 fiscal year. The Village outsourced its refuse collection operations for the same year and contracted for this service for $215,352. The refuse revenues were $185,004 more than the contractual amount of the outsourced service. The Deputy Clerk provided us with the refuse budget for 2017-18. The budget did not include an amount for revenues but it did include total budgeted appropriations of $395,000, which included the cost of the contract ($215,352) and administrative salaries and overhead costs of $179,648 which would be 45 percent of the total Village costs for these categories. Village officials were not able to support the salary and overhead cost allocations with documentation such as actual time spent on administering refuse collection operations. Finally, because the revenues and expenditures for refuse collection are comingled with general fund revenues and expenditures, there was no comparison of revenues to expenditures to determine any amount that should be used to reduce future refuse costs and to improve budget estimates going forward. Instead, excess refuse collection revenues were combined with other general fund revenues and used for general fund operations.

The City of Albany Industrial Development Agency (CAIDA) did not incorporate goals into project agreements. The CAIDA did not have an adequate or consistent system to incorporate goals into project agreements even though the projects were approved based on specific characteristics. Generally, only goals related to employment were incorporated in project agreements when a project benefits agreement was included. However, 13 of the 15 projects met or exceeded their job creation and/or retention goals. These 13 projects had 2015 and 2016 employment goals to create and/or retain 1,034 and 1,270 full time equivalent (FTE) jobs and reported a total of 1,666 and 1,876 FTE jobs, respectively. Finally, the CAIDA did not monitor project performance for investment or revitalization goals.

The District's benefits clerk maintained a list of all retiree health insurance enrollees and the type of coverage provided (family or Individual) and reconciled the list monthly with the insurance providers' invoices. However, the District does not have procedures for independently verifying whether retirees are still living or whether their dependents are still eligible for coverage. Instead, the benefits clerk relies on NYSHIP to identify retirees who are deceased and to issue any appropriate credits or refunds for any premiums paid for periods after the retirees' deaths. The clerk also relies on quarterly reports from the New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS) to notify them when a retiree dies. In addition, the District requires Medicare-eligible retirees to annually certify in writing that they are still eligible for reimbursements. While these practices collectively provide updates of a retiree's status, relying on them may not identify all deceased retirees.

The Clerk-Treasurer performs most aspects of the cash receipts and disbursements processes. Her duties include collecting, recording and depositing money, processing payroll, preparing abstracts of audited claims, preparing bank reconciliations and preparing and signing all checks. She performs these duties without adequate oversight. Having these incompatible duties allowed the Clerk-Treasurer to disburse payroll payments without another official's review to ensure the payments were accurate and appropriate. We reviewed all payments made to all four officials and nine employees totaling $34,514 and found that, although the elected and appointed officials were paid at Board-approved rates, hourly employees were not. More specifically, the Clerk-Treasurer underpaid all nine hourly employees by a total of $2,800. Finally, the Clerk-Treasurer was able to adjust billings without another official's review and approval, increasing the risk that inappropriate adjustments could be made without detection or correction.

District officials established a well-designed system over separation payments and properly implemented the system. The system included adequate written procedures covering how payments should be made. Both the human resource clerk and analyst correctly calculated payments and the payments made were supported by collective bargaining agreements and employment contracts. In addition, the Board approved retirements and other separations from District employment before any payments were made.

The Board was unable to sufficiently oversee the Clerk-Treasurer's duties. Although it reviewed claims and received a monthly report from the Clerk-Treasurer, these reports were inaccurate. The Board requested that the Clerk-Treasurer provide reports with more accurate and complete information. However, the Clerk-Treasurer failed to do so. The Clerk-Treasurer also failed to provide the Board with accurate budget-to-actual reports and complete financial reports each month. Further, the value of these reports was greatly diminished because accounting records were unreliable and bank reconciliations were inaccurate and not prepared for all accounts. Because of ineffective recordkeeping, the certified public accounting firm was unable to complete its audits for the last two years. The Board hired another certified public accountant who was paid $30,000 to correct the records. Finally, the Clerk-Treasurer did not adequately segregate the deputies' duties or provide sufficient oversight of their work. As a result, many of their duties were performed without Board approval or the Clerk-Treasurer's knowledge or oversight.

Town officials have plans for the levels of unreserved fund balance they maintain. However, they have no long-term plans for funding equipment and infrastructure needs. Town officials have an informal plan to maintain unreserved fund balance at approximately three to four months' worth of expenditures. Accordingly, over the past three years, officials have maintained an average of 22 percent ($135,000) of appropriations in their general and highway funds combined. Furthermore, while they maintain capital and repair reserves totaling $117,000 as of December 31, 2017, they do not have multi-year plans for funding or using the reserves to ensure financial resources are available to finance future capital needs, such as highway equipment. In addition, although the condition of the Town's roads was generally fair, the Highway Superintendent and Deputy Supervisor stated the Town's western roads need some repairs and will be the focus of the Highway Department for 2018. Finally, the Town owns 11 pieces of major highway equipment which, in total, are over their useful life by an average of three years. While useful life may not be an indication of how long a particular piece of equipment will last, Town officials should consider this information when developing long-term plans.

District officials need to improve their budgeting practices to ensure fund balance is reasonable. The District budgeted planned operating deficits by appropriating approximately $5.5 million in fund balance annually as a financing source for 2013-14 through 2017-18. This appropriation of fund balance made it appear that unrestricted fund balance was within the statutory limit. However, because officials underestimated revenues and overestimated expenditures in four of these years, operating results did not generate the planned deficits. As a result, $22.1 million (79.5 percent) of the $27.8 million total appropriated fund balance went unused. When the unused appropriated fund balance was added back, the District's recalculated unrestricted fund balance exceeded the statutory limit in four of five years by 3.3 to 3.7 percentage points.

The Board did not use an appropriate process when selling and acquiring property, resulting in the likely expenditure of more money than necessary. On July 25, 2016, the Board adopted a resolution declaring the Southside Municipal Center (SMC) surplus and agreed to sell the building to a private developer (SMC purchaser) for $2.2 million. However, the Board did not follow good business practices when it sold the SMC. The Board received only one offer for the property, did not use a real estate broker to identify potential buyers and did not publicly advertise the sale to obtain other offers, for a potentially higher selling price. We estimate that the sale price was nearly $718,000 less than the costs incurred by the Town to purchase and renovate the SMC building. In addition, the Town purchased a former fire hall, senior center and a residential building for $586,000. The Town estimates it will take $3 million to $4 million to renovate the building for use as a new Town hall. However, the Board did not follow good business practices before it purchased these properties because it did not conduct a feasibility study for the proposed project, develop a project budget, obtain estimates for the cost of renovations (necessary to convert the building into Town hall) or obtain a professional appraisal to establish the approximate value of the properties before it approved the purchases.

The Board has not developed an adequate procurement policy. We reviewed the Board minutes and found that the last time the policy was reviewed and amended was in 2015. However, the competitive bidding dollar thresholds listed in the policy have not been updated since General Municipal Law was amended in 2010. In addition, officials did not always obtain quotes in compliance with the procurement policy. Officials did not obtain bids, quotes or use request for proposals, as required, for three payments totaling $26,683. These included repairs for a highway truck ($14,695), fuel ($9,997) and document scanning services ($1,991). Furthermore, the dollar thresholds established by the Board requiring quotes for purchases of goods and services, not subject to competitive bidding, appear high for the Town's size. The policy requires officials to obtain quotes for purchases in excess of $3,000 and public works contracts in excess of $5,000. The Town may realize cost savings by reducing the thresholds for purchases requiring quotes in the procurement policy.

We identified 37 eligible employees who received separation payments totaling $516,017 during the audit period. To determine whether all payments were accurate per the applicable collective bargaining agreement or individual employment contract, we recalculated the separation payments using available calculations performed by the Business Manager and other supporting documentation, including leave records and Board-approved pay rates and salaries. Except for minor discrepancies which we discussed with District officials, we found that the separation payments were accurately paid in accordance with Board-approved agreements and the contract. However, although the claims auditor independently reviews the separation payment calculations processed by the accounts payable clerk, there is no independent review of separation payment calculations processed by the payroll clerk in the payroll system.

To determine whether the 10 school districts that we audited provide physical education (PE) classes consistently with the regulations of the Commissioner of the New York State Education Department (SED).

The Board did not adopt a fund balance and reserve policy to establish the levels of fund balance to be maintained and the reserves to be funded and used. Since 2015, the total combined fund balance in the general and highway funds increased by $450,000 and, as of December 31, 2017, was 83 percent of 2017 expenditures. Over the last three years, conservative budgeting led to combined overestimated expenditures of $495,000 and underestimated revenues of $226,000 in the general and highway funds which contributed to the surpluses generated. Officials have not developed multiyear financial or capital plans to address significant infrastructure and equipment needs. However, the Board is developing a comprehensive plan to identify and address the Town's future financial and capital needs.

The Board did not establish sufficient policies or procedures for the claims audit process and did not comply with the law or enforce the limited bylaw provisions. As a result, the Board did not properly audit and approve all claims before payment. The Board also did not adequately ensure that Library staff followed and documented compliance with the Town's procurement policy. Furthermore, the Board did not adopt a policy to address accounting for or the use, approval and reporting of private funds maintained by Library staff. Although the Board adopted a patron acceptable use policy, it did not adopt IT policies addressing staff acceptable use, password management, user accounts, access rights, backups, hardware and software inventories, connecting personally owned devices to Library computers and breach notification. The Board also did not adopt a disaster recovery plan or provide users with cyber security training. Finally, the Board did not authorize salaries and pay rates. The Director told us that the Library follows the same increases in pay rates authorized for Town employees and that the Board did not formally authorize the pay rate schedule, but is informed of the increases that will be provided.

Employees did not complete or issue duplicate receipts for all money collected. During 2017, the Assistant reported approximately $546,000 in total money collected for contracted fees ($402,000), gasoline ($124,000) and booth ($20,000) sales on weekly receipt reports. While the Assistant and other employees completed duplicate receipts for the contracted fees such as seasonal docks and camping, the duplicate receipt copies were not provided to patrons. Further, employees did not issue or retain receipts for money collected for either gasoline sales or booth sales for fees related to parking, boat launch, ice or other miscellaneous fees that employees collected daily. The enforcement of probation obligations in arrears owed by offenders is the responsibility of the individual probation officers, under the supervision of probation supervisors. A collections clerk (clerk) attempts to enforce obligations in arrears for cases which are collection only, when the offender is no longer on active probation but the obligations are still owed to the victim. The clerk is also responsible for locating victims to whom restitution is owed and uses methods similar to those used by probation officers to locate victims. While we found that the Probation Department (Department) generally took sufficient action to collect obligations and locate victims, we identified certain opportunities for the Department to continue to improve operations. We reviewed 14 individual case files for offenders with obligations in arrears totaling more than $900,000 and two months of undisbursed restitution owed to seven victims totaling more than $10,200. For example, obligations in arrears for one case was not sufficiently enforced, leading to $110,000 in obligations still outstanding. Efforts have not been made since June 2015 to locate this offender.

From 2013-14 through 2015-16, the Board and District officials adopted budgets that appropriated $1.6 million of general fund balance and certain reserve funds to finance operating expenditures. During this period, the general fund incurred operating deficits totaling $4.8 million. As a result, the District used $3.2 million more fund balance and reserves than planned. This reduced total fund balance by $4.8 million (52 percent) to $4.4 million as of June 30, 2016. Although the general fund balance continued to decline in 2016-17, the actual operating deficit was less than planned. In 2016-17, revenue growth began to outpace expenditures, increasing by more than 5 percent, while expenditures increased by less than 1 percent. This revenue increase was average compared to historical trends, but the expenditures declined because District officials implemented cost reduction measures. More specifically, officials eliminated eight teaching positions from 2013-14 through 2016-17, which saved the District approximately $350,000. Furthermore, District officials told us special education costs stabilized once the District began providing certain special education programs in-house instead of using the Board of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES) to provide them.

The Board did not calculate the District's statutory spending limitation, hold a public hearing prior to adopting the annual budgets, or ensure that financial reports are accurate, reliable and in compliance with General Municipal Law's requirement for a uniform system of accounts. Also, the Board did not properly modify the 2016 budget to include an additional appropriation of approximately $390,000 for the purchase of a fire truck. Additionally, the Board did not establish written rental agreements with its affiliated fire department and companies. Finally, the District's insurance policies included coverage for the Department and Companies with insurance premiums totaling $43,334. Although the District may insure itself against loss from use of the Department's and Companies' properties for District purposes, it lacks the authority to purchase insurance to protect the Department and Companies against loss from use of their respective properties.

The District Clerk is responsible for maintaining leave accrual and usage records for all employees. There are no procedures or oversight for the District Clerk's input of leave usage into the electronic software. Therefore, we reviewed the leave accrual balances for 10 of the 165 employees from July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2017. We found 16 instances where the District Clerk did not record leave used by seven employees, resulting in leave balances being overstated by a total of 9.5 days, valued at $3,623. The errors found in accrual records for 70 percent of the 10 employees tested shows the system of controls over employee accruals is not working properly. For example, the Treasurer had six instances of leave time used totaling 3.5 days valued at $1,000 that were not recorded in the electronic software.

The Board needs to provide additional oversight of the Treasurer's financial duties. The Treasurer performed all financial duties including receiving and disbursing cash, signing District checks, conducting bank transfers and maintaining the accounting records with little or no oversight. The Treasurer was also responsible for reconciling the District's bank accounts. The Treasurer's accounting records provide manual cash receipt and disbursement journals and running cash balances, but she did not maintain any subsidiary accounts to classify actual revenues and expenditures by account code or type of expenditures. The Board did not annually audit the Treasurer's records to help verify that cash is properly accounted for and transactions are properly recorded. In addition, the Board did not properly establish its capital reserve fund and obtain voter approval prior to issuing $150,000 in debt. Finally, the Board did not require perpetual diesel fuel inventory records, leading to unaccounted-for fuel.

The Board and District officials did not properly manage fund balance and need to improve their budgeting practices. Although the Board's fund balance policy requires the District to maintain unrestricted fund balance within the statutory limit, the Board has allowed it to exceed the statutory limit for the past three years by two to seven percentage points. As of June 30, 2017, unrestricted fund balance totaled nearly $1.8 million and was 9 percent of 2017-18 budgeted appropriations, exceeding the statutory limit by more than $950,000, or five percentage points. In addition, although the Board adopted a reserve fund policy, the policy did not address optimal funding levels, conditions necessary for use or how and when reserve funds would be replenished. As of June 30, 2017, the District reported four general fund reserves with cumulative balances totaling approximately $3.9 million. We analyzed these reserves for reasonableness and adherence to statutory requirements and found that three reserves appear to be overfunded. The remaining reserve was reasonably funded.