Southtowns Record

Town of Hamburg - Finance Office (2023M-109)

Government
Town of Hamburg
Posted by publisher
Dec 8, 2023
Kind
State audit
Topics
Audits and oversight

Publisher's summary

The Town Board (Board) and Town officials did not ensure that credit card purchases were supported and for proper Town purposes. The former Director of Finance (former Director) was arrested in September 2022 for charges relating to her use of the Town's credit card. She pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in December 2022. Additionally, the Board and Town officials did not ensure Finance Office payroll was accurate and supported.

Original document

Text · page 10 of 16

If the former Director did not actually work during the 460.5 hours that she
approved the employee to receive out-of-title pay for performing her job duties,
she was improperly paid $18,961, as she should have charged leave accruals
and received paid leave time instead of receiving regular pay. When an employee
separates from employment, they are entitled to be paid the monetary value of
their unused vacation time. Therefore, it is important to maintain accurate leave
accrual records and regularly reconcile leave balances. The former Director also
improperly approved 152 hours totaling $456 in out-of-title pay for herself in June
and July of 2018. Because she was already a department head and there was no
higher job classification for her to have been temporarily assigned to, it is unclear
why she would receive out-of-title pay. We reviewed the payroll input summaries
for these two months and there was no supporting documentation indicating what
job duties were performed or why she earned the out-of-title pay. These payroll
input summaries were approved by the former Director.

The Director of Personnel told us that the Personnel Department’s procedures
for processing out-of-title pay includes comparing an employee’s time sheet
requesting out-of-title pay to their supervisor’s charges of leave accruals to
ensure the supervisor charged leave during the same time period. However, she
said that because the Town had turnover in the Director of Personnel position
during our audit period, it is unclear if this practice was in place continuously and
whether the employee’s time sheet was compared to the former Director’s use of
leave accruals.

Because the former Supervisor did not review the former Director’s payroll and
the Town did not have a process for certifying and reviewing payroll registers for
accuracy or written procedures for verifying that out-of-title pay is necessary and
in compliance with the Regulations, the Town made improper, questionable and
unsupported payroll payments.

Overtime – For the period January 1, 2021 through August 31, 2022, the Town
paid four employees a total of $13,750 for 338 hours of overtime. Payments to
three employees totaling $5,611 for 131 hours of overtime were not approved by
a supervisor or any other employee or official, as follows:
  l The current and former Directors of Personnel were paid overtime for
  103.5 hours and 12.5 hours, respectively, totaling $5,017 for 116 hours
  of overtime they authorized themselves because the Town did not have
  procedures for approving overtime for department heads. The Directors of
  Personnel approved their own time sheets and authorized their own overtime
  without the involvement of any other Town employee or official, such as the
  Supervisor.
  l A finance office employee was paid $594 for 14.75 hours of overtime when
  the employee’s supervisor was on leave. The Director of Personnel said the

8  Of f ic e of t he New York State Comptroller