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uses the assessment roll to calculate the property owners’ garbage fee(s) and adds them to the correlating real property tax bills. If permanent changes (e.g., additional unit built or property type change from commercial to residential) to the We reviewed number of fees applicable to a property occur, the DPW Commissioner notifies documentation the Treasurer and the Assessor’s clerk via memos indicating the changes to be made. for 33 of the We identified 220 properties that did not appear to have been assessed the 220 properties correct number of collection fees based on the property type and number of units and found 30 indicated on the assessment roll. Specifically, 130 properties appeared to have been assessed $33,020 fewer collection fees and 90 properties appeared to have (91 percent) been assessed $22,860 more collection fees than they should have been, in were not accordance with the Code. assessed and/ We reviewed documentation for 333 of the 220 properties and found 30 (91 percent) were not assessed and/or billed in accordance with the Code. or billed in Specifically: accordance ll Twenty multiple-dwelling properties, each with two units, were assessed and billed one garbage fee rather than two, resulting in under-billed fees totaling with the Code. $5,080. Four of these properties were owned by City employees. ll Five single-family properties were not assessed or billed garbage fees, resulting in under-billed fees totaling $1,270. ll One single-family property was incorrectly assessed and billed two garbage fees, resulting in over-billed fees of $254. ll Two properties owned by social organizations were each provided garbage services and billed associated fees even though the Code prohibits providing such services to these entities. ll One multiple-dwelling property with two units was assessed as a single- family property but was correctly billed two garbage fees. ll One single-family property was incorrectly assessed as a multiple-dwelling property but was correctly billed one garbage fee. The remaining three properties were City-owned properties and not subject to a garbage fee. In addition, the DPW clerk had documentation for 10 properties which indicated that either due to errors or permanent changes to the properties, the number of garbage fees assessed and/or billed to those properties should have been updated during our audit period. The DPW clerk told us the DPW Commissioner provided her with paper memos indicating such updates, and she delivered the 3 See Appendix C for sampling methodology. Of f ic e of t he New York State Comptroller 3