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Community Education Program Fees Continuing education and the before and after school program fees can be paid online electronically or in-person at the Department. All electronic payments are made to third-party vendors who are responsible for submitting those fees to the District.1 The vendor responsible for processing continuing education program fees deposits electronic payments directly into a District bank account, but the vendor responsible for processing electronic payments for the before and after school program vendor remits the fees to the District periodically by check. How Should the District Properly Account for Program Fees? The Board and Coordinator are responsible for providing adequate oversight of the Department’s operations, which includes adopting written policies and procedures over cash receipts and overseeing third-party vendors who collect online payments. Department employees should maintain accurate and complete cash receipts records. The Coordinator should ensure that all collections are deposited in a timely manner and then subsequently reconciled to Department records such as class rosters, sign-in sheets, daily attendance records and daily cash collection reports to help ensure all money collected, including online payments collected by third-party vendors, has been properly received, recorded and deposited. The Board is also responsible for adopting written policies regarding collecting unpaid program fees due to the District. These policies should include provisions for invoicing overdue accounts in a timely manner and requiring Board approval for all payment plan arrangements and accounts written off as uncollectible and program participation for families with past due balances. The District Did Not Receive All Program Fees The District did not have written policies or procedures for reconciling program fees and for overseeing third-party vendors collecting electronic payments online. We reviewed all program fees collected in January 2019, totaling more than $92,000 and found that $83,000 of the fees collected (90 percent) were paid electronically and collected by third-party vendors. However, District officials did not review or reconcile electronic payments with cash receipts records to verify that all program fees are collected and remitted to the District. As a result, District officials were unaware of a processing error by one vendor’s software system that resulted in the District not initially receiving more than $5,500 in before and after school program fees recorded as collected but not remitted in January 2019. 1 Electronic payments include payments made by credit or debit card and electronic payments or transfers from customer checking accounts. 2 Of f ic e of t he New York State Comptroller