New York State Comptroller Thomas
P. DiNapoli announced the following audits and reports were issued were issued
on May 11, 2023.

Links to material
posted on the Internet highlighted in COLOR.

 

City of Amsterdam – Budget Review (Montgomery County)
The significant revenue and expenditure projections in the city’s 2023-24
proposed budget are reasonable. However, certain revenue and expenditure
projections and other matters should be reviewed by the mayor and council. In
addition, city officials did not implement all of the recommendations in the
previous review letter when preparing the 2023-24 proposed budget. Auditors
found that the mayor submitted the 2023-24 proposed budget to the council on April 19, 2023, or 18 days after the
charter-established deadline and the proposed budgets for the general and
recreation funds are not structurally balanced because they include subsidies
from other funds to finance their operations. Also, the proposed budget, as in
the three previous years, allocates appropriations for personal services,
contractual expenditures and employee benefits between the operating funds
using unsupported allocation methods.

 

Town of Chemung – Intermunicipal Consolidation
Agreement (Chemung County) Town of Chemung (Chemung)
officials did not adequately monitor the Chemung and Town of Ashland (Ashland)
Intermunicipal Consolidation Agreement’s highway service labor costs. Officials
did not establish procedures to evaluate labor costs by town. For example,
timecard information was not used to monitor labor costs for services provided
to Ashland and highway
employees’ timecards did not always identify their work location needed to
allocate costs. As a result, labor costs were not equitable, and Chemung could
have incurred approximately $23,000 in additional costs to provide services to Ashland.

 

City of Long Beach – Budget Review (Nassau County)
The significant revenue and expenditure projections in the 2023-24 proposed
budget are reasonable. However, City officials only partially implemented the
recommendations provided in the prior year’s budget review letter.  In
addition, the city’s proposed budget includes a tax levy of $59.9 million,
which is $5.5 million above the legal limit and the city council has adopted a
local law authorizing an override of the tax levy limit.

 

North Amityville Fire Company, Inc. – Cash
Disbursements (Suffolk County) The board did not ensure
that all cash disbursements were for appropriate company purposes or supported.
Of the $3.6 million in disbursements made during the two-year audit period,
auditors found disbursements totaling $585,792 were for inappropriate
purchases. Examples included: $106,542 in unsupported cash disbursements made
to six board members and the chief; $44,820 for domestic flights and lodging
in, among other places, Dallas, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, and Nashville; $32,093
for service and maintenance to vehicles the company did not own or could not
provide support for; $11,258 for Christmas gifts that included, but were not
limited to, gift cards, clothing, drones and video games. The disbursements
also included $10,853 for one board member’s Alaskan cruise vacation and the
chief’s vacation to a clothing-optional resort in Jamaica with his
spouse. Other items included: $7,239 for alcohol; $5,121 for 14-karat gold and
diamond rings for the chief and his spouse; $2,728 for optical services; and
$1,998 for professional basketball tickets.

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