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Leave Records Were Not Accurate or Supported and Leave Request Forms Were Not Always Properly Approved Leave records were not accurate or supported by department time and attendance records or properly approved leave request forms. The discrepancies were spread across various departments and leave records for employees at all levels, including department heads, were inaccurate. In addition, we determined that nine employees’ leave request forms were not approved or were not approved by their supervisor. We reviewed leave records for 27 employees1 and determined that 373.5 of the 6,077 hours of leave time used by these employees was recorded incorrectly or not at all in the payroll system. This generally occurred because more than one Town official or employee, such as the former Supervisor, Personnel Clerk or the part-time payroll clerk, was updating leave records. As a result, the leave records in the payroll system were either not updated for leave time used or in some instances, leave time was deducted from leave balances in the payroll system multiple times by more than one individual. Officials did not establish written policies and procedures that designate who is responsible for recording leave usage, updating leave balances or verifying leave was recorded accurately, which may have prevented these discrepancies. Additionally, the amount of leave time earned by these employees was not always awarded in accordance with the terms of the applicable employment agreement. For example, according to the applicable CBA, employees hired before a certain date earn an additional 0.25 hours of sick leave during months when no sick leave was taken by the employee. However, the payroll system improperly awarded 0.25 hours of sick leave to employee leave balances regardless of whether employees used sick leave or not. Because neither the Supervisor, nor another appropriate Town official, performed periodic independent reviews of the leave records and balances, these discrepancies were not detected or corrected. The Personnel Clerk told us they were aware that the payroll system awarded leave incorrectly and that leave balances were inaccurate because department heads often identified errors when comparing their department’s manual leave records to the leave records in the payroll system. The Personnel Clerk and Deputy Highway Superintendent explained that the payroll clerks would not always correct the payroll records because they could just use the department’s manual leave records instead of the payroll system’s leave records when calculating payments based on leave balances, such as separation payments. However, since the payroll system is the Town’s official leave record, it should be accurate, and any errors should be corrected. In addition, employees have the ability to review leave balances when they log into the payroll system; therefore, if the leave records in the payroll system were accurate and up to date, employees could be asked to periodically review their leave balances and help ensure their leave records were accurate. In addition, the Town’s reported compensated absences long-term liability should be based on the official leave record and, therefore, it must be accurate. 1 See Appendix B for details of our sampling and testing methodology. Of f ic e of t he New York State Comptroller 3