In an audit received by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office on June 3, it was determined within the audit that the clerk-treasurer’s cash and fund balance records were inaccurate and unreliable.
The justices and the board did not ensure that parking tickets were collected, recorded and deposited in an accurate manner, and unpaid tickets remained outstanding for an average of 181 days, according to the audit.
According to the audit, it was found that the Clerk-Treasurer was not meeting the fundamental expectations of his duties. The Clerk-Treasurer provided the Board with budget-to-actual and incomplete fund balance reports each month, which did not enable it to properly oversee the Village’s financial activities.
Further, the value of these reports was greatly diminished because accounting records were not accurate and bank reconciliations were not performed for all accounts in a timely manner.
While the Board has contracted with a certified public accountant to perform an annual audit of the Village’s financial records, it is not completed in a timely manner because the inaccurate financial records have delayed it.
Further, the Village has not filed its annual update document with the Office of the State Comptroller within the required timeframes. Also, the Clerk-Treasurer did not adequately segregate the financial duties within his office. As a result, the risk is increased that errors or irregularities could occur without detection or correction.
Also, according to the audit, the Justices and Board did not ensure that parking tickets were collected, recorded and deposited in an accurate manner. The Court Clerk performs the collection, deposit, reconciliation and enforcement of parking ticket fines with no mitigating controls in place.
In addition, no one reconciles the tickets issued by the Police Department to the tickets recorded and filed by the Court. While they found immaterial errors with the $5,800 in parking ticket collections they reviewed, they found that 12 uncollected parking ticket late fees totaling $860 had inadequate or no documentation to support why the late fees were not collected.
They also found that 74 unpaid tickets issued during their audit period, with fees totaling approximately $7,000, remained outstanding by an average of 181 days. Village officials did not take steps to ensure that these fees were collected in a timely manner. As a result, Village officials have limited the potential revenue that could be received from these fines.
Village officials agreed with the recommendations of the Comptroller’s office, and have indicated that they have implemented, or plan to implement corrective action.
To read the full audit report, visit www.osc.state.ny.us/ocalgov/audits/villages/2015/owego.pdf.
