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 6 of 7

We also compared the disbursement records with the check images to determine whether the
records were reliable. We reviewed 20 disbursements totaling over $10.5 million from 2020
through 2024. We were unable to verify one disbursement totaling $885 because the check was
not yet issued at the time of our inquiry. As a result of our inquiry, the account clerk typist
identified 13 checks totaling over $9,000 that were recorded in the records but not issued because
of a software malfunction. However, when checks are recorded in the software but not issued,
those financial records are unreliable.

We also determined that the Director did not properly record capital projects expenditures. For
example, according to the Highway Superintendent, the Town incurred over $70,000 in labor costs
for work performed by highway department employees related to the highway facility renovations
as of October 19, 2024. However, these expenditures were charged to the highway fund instead of
the capital projects fund because the Director and Highway Superintendent stated that they were
not additional expenditures as the employees were already working for the Town on a full-time
basis. However, if a local government uses its own employees and equipment for a capital project,
the project should be charged for these costs. The manner in which the project and the contributing
fund(s) are charged depends on whether the services were intended to be treated as an in-kind
contribution to the project or as a reimbursable cost.

In summary, with the exception of one itemized budget available for public review, all four of the
recommendations in our prior audit were not implemented. The Supervisor blamed the prior CPA
for not bringing the deficiencies to his attention after the 2022 external audit. However, the CPA
management letter, dated August 25, 2023, identified negative balances in the capital projects fund
indicating that expenditures were incurred for a given project without amounts budgeted to pay for
them.

The Supervisor stated that corrective action had not been implemented, in part, due to turnover in
key positions and the Town did not have a full-time Director for over a month during 2023. While
the Town had three different Directors from 2020 through current, the Supervisor has been in the
position since January 2020, and as the chief fiscal officer, he is responsible for monitoring and
providing sufficient oversight of the Director’s duties.

For additional guidance, Town officials should refer to the Office of the State Comptroller’s
guidelines on capital projects, bank reconciliations, and duties of the Town Supervisor (Figure 1).

  6