Southtowns Record

Town of West Seneca – Audit Follow-Up (2019M-195-F)

Government
Town of West Seneca
Posted by publisher
Apr 18, 2025
Kind
State audit
Topics
Budget and taxes, Audits and oversight, Roads and traffic, Water, sewer and drainage, Parks and recreation

Publisher's summary

The purpose of our review was to assess the Town of West Seneca’s (Town’s) progress, as of December 2024, in implementing our recommendations in the audit report Town of West Seneca – Capital Project Management (2019M-195), released in March 2020.

Original document

Text · page 1 of 7

STATE OF NEW YORK
THOMAS P. DiNAPOLI  OFFICE OF THE STATE COMPTROLLER  ROBIN L. LOIS, CPA
 STATE COMPTROLLER  110 STATE STREET  DEPUTY COMPTROLLER
  ALBANY, NEW YORK 12236  DIVISION OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  AND SCHOOL ACCOUNTABILITY
  Tel: (518) 474-4037 Fax: (518) 486-6479

  April 2025

  Gary A. Dickson, Town Supervisor
  Members of the Town Board
  Town of West Seneca
  1250 Union Road
  West Seneca, NY 14224

  Report Number: 2019M-195-F

  Dear Town Supervisor Dickson and Members of the Town Board:

  One of the Office of the State Comptroller’s primary objectives is
  to identify areas where local government officials can improve their
  operations and provide guidance and services that will assist them
  in making those improvements. The Office also works to develop
  and promote short-term and long-term strategies to enable and
  encourage town officials to reduce costs, improve service delivery
  and to account for and protect their town’s assets. In accordance
  with these objectives, we conducted an audit of the Town of West
  Seneca (Town) to assess the Town’s Capital Project Management.
  As a result of our audit, we issued a report, dated March 2020, 1
  identifying certain conditions and opportunities for the Town
  Board’s (Board) and Town Supervisor’s (Supervisor) review and
  consideration.

  To further our policy of providing assistance to local governments, we revisited the Town to review
  progress in implementing our recommendations. Our follow-up review was limited to interviews
  with Town personnel and inspection of certain documents related to the issues identified in our
  report. Based on our limited procedures, the Board and Supervisor have not implemented
  corrective actions. Of the four recommendations, none were implemented. As a result, the Board
  has continued to limit transparency and not properly plan and manage the Town’s capital projects
  or clearly inform taxpayers and residents of each project’s scope and estimated cost. Board
  members were unable to provide reasonable explanations for their lack of corrective action.

  Recommendation 1 – Prepare, Approve and Amend Itemized Budgets

  The Board should prepare and approve an itemized budget and amend and update it as the project
  plan changes.

  1 https://www.osc.ny.gov/local-government/audits/town/2020/03/06/town-west-seneca-capital-project-management-
  2019m-195