Village of Owego: Comptroller’s office reveals deficiencies 

[By Wendy Post]

During a period from August 1, 2023 to May 21, 2025, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office conducted an ongoing audit to determine if the Village of Owego officials were maintaining complete, accurate, and timely accounting records and reports. The audit was extended to February 10, 2026, to allow for a review of the Annual Financial Report (AFR) filing status.

On July 3, 2026, the review was completed. According to the Comptroller, village officials did not maintain complete, accurate, and timely accounting records and reports. The Clerk-Treasurer’s accounting records contained errors and omitted transactions, and monthly bank reconciliations were not prepared. 

As a result, the Village Board (Board) received inaccurate financial reports and could not provide adequate oversight of the Village’s financial operations. Additionally, because the Clerk-Treasurer did not file the Village’s AFR on time and the Board did not perform an annual audit of the Clerk-Treasurer’s accounting records, officials did not comply with New York State General Municipal Law (GML) and New York State Village Law (Village Law). This diminished the Board’s ability to identify inaccurate and incomplete accounting records and reports and address deficiencies. 

As a result of the audit and follow-up, the Comptroller’s Office determined the following:

The Clerk-Treasurer’s accounting records were not always updated in a timely manner and included various unrecorded transactions and errors, including $3.2 million in revenue for a Bond Anticipation Note (BAN)1 that was not recorded in the accounting records. 

The Clerk-Treasurer did not prepare monthly bank reconciliations for all 31 Village bank accounts. The comptroller’s office compared the Village’s recorded cash balances to the bank balances for all funds as of August 31, 2024, and determined that recorded cash balances did not reconcile with the bank balances for all 31 bank accounts. The total bank balances were approximately $3.2 million (74 percent) higher than the total recorded cash balances. 

The report noted that because some bank accounts were overstated while others were understated, the combined amount of these misstatements totaled approximately $4.2 million. 

It was also revealed that the Clerk-Treasurer did not provide complete and accurate monthly financial reports to the Board. Specifically, the cash reports contained unreconciled cash balances; balance sheet reports were not provided; and budget-to-actual comparisons were inaccurate. 

The Clerk-Treasurer did not file the Village’s AFR with the New York State Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) on time for five fiscal years (2018-19 through 2022-23) as required by GML Section 30. The AFRs were filed with OSC between 595 and 848 days late as of February 10, 2026. 

Additionally, as of February 10, 2026, the Clerk-Treasurer has not filed the Village’s AFRs for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 fiscal years. Because the AFRs were not filed in a timely manner, OSC was unable to analyze them to identify possible fiscal stress. 

Also noted, the Board did not perform an annual audit of the Clerk-Treasurer’s accounting records as required by Village Law Section 4-408. 

The report includes nine recommendations that, if implemented, will improve the Village official’s maintenance and oversight of records and reports. Village officials generally agreed with the recommendations.

The audit was conducted pursuant to Article V, Section 1 of the State Constitution and the State Comptroller’s authority as set forth in Article 3 of the New York State General Municipal Law.  

The Board has the responsibility to initiate corrective action, and was given 90 days, pursuant to Section 35 of the New York State General Municipal Law, to provide a written corrective action plan (CAP) that addresses the findings. 

Lastly, the Comptroller’s Office is encouraging the Board to make the CAP available for public review in the Clerk-Treasurer’s office.