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 4 of 7

adopted six bond resolutions with a total estimated cost of $33.6 million.2 While Town officials
prepared budgets for five of the six bond resolutions adopted, only one budget was included in the
agenda packet and available for public review and it was incomplete. 3 Also, officials were unable
to provide us with the watermain replacement project budget to support a bond resolution totaling
approximately $1.6 million.

Regarding the bond resolutions, we also determined the following:

  •  In 2022, the Board adopted two bond resolutions, totaling $3.3 million, for road
  improvement and highway equipment expenditures. The Director of Finance (Director)
  stated that she accounted for these expenditures in the highway fund instead of the capital
  projects fund because this was what was done in the past. However, the acquisition,
  construction or improvement of capital assets should only be accounted for in a local
  government’s operating fund when the project is being financed by the operating fund
  which was not the case for these projects.

  •  In 2022, the Board adopted a bond resolution for $1.8 million to purchase machinery and
  apparatus for construction and maintenance in the Town. In a correspondence to the Board,
  dated February 1, 2022, the Highway Superintendent estimated a cost between $1.8 million
  and $2 million for the purchase of nine new single-axel dump trucks equipped with
  snowplows and wing blades. However, as of December 31, 2024, the Town had purchased
  six trucks and a loader with a snowblower attachment totaling nearly $1.5 million or three
  less dump trucks than officials had estimated to purchase with the funds. Furthermore, the
  Director stated that these purchases were not charged to the capital projects fund because
  the Town had always charged road work and equipment expenditures to the highway fund.

Recommendation 4 – Maintain Complete and Accurate Accounting Records and Provide the
Board with Monthly Reports

The Supervisor should ensure complete and accurate accounting records are maintained and
provide the Board with monthly reports comparing actual revenues and expenditures to budgeted
amounts.

Status of Corrective Action: Not Implemented

Observations/Findings: The Director provided the Board with monthly reports showing actual
revenues and expenditures, but because there were no adopted budgets, the reports did not provide
a true budget-to-actual comparison. Consequently, the Board would not be able to effectively
monitor capital projects by ensuring financing sources were sufficient to fund expenditures or that
project costs were in line with expected total project costs.

The Director stated that budgetary information for capital projects was not provided to the Board
in the past. However, she agreed that including the budgeted amount would help Board members
monitor capital project activity more effectively. The Board should review the monthly budget-to-
actual reports to properly monitor project spending and prevent cost overruns.

2 The bond resolutions reviewed do not correspond to the seven capital projects noted in our observations/findings
for Recommendations #1 and #2.
3 One bond resolution contained budgets for three water districts. However, only one of these budgets was included
in the agenda packet.
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