Southtowns Record

Village of Gowanda - Sewer Financial Operations (2019M-199)

Government
Village of Gowanda
Posted by publisher
Dec 20, 2019
Kind
State audit
Topics
Water, sewer and drainage, Audits and oversight, Budget and taxes

Publisher's summary

Because the Board did not adopt realistic budgets, the sewer fund incurred operating deficits and a decline in its overall financial health. The Board overestimated revenues by $379,000 in fiscal years 2014-15 through 2018-19, resulting in net operating deficits in the sewer fund totaling $144,000. The Board also did not annually review contractual revenues, resulting in potential unrealized revenue totaling approximately $295,000. Finally, the Board did not document a basis for, or adequately monitor, shared service costs, resulting in possible sewer fund inequities. However, with rate increases in effect and the adoption of more realistic revenue estimates in 2018-19 and 2019-20, there has been marked improvement.

Original document

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Appendix B: Audit Methodology and Standards

We conducted this audit pursuant to Article V, Section 1 of the State Constitution
and the State Comptroller’s authority as set forth in Article 3 of the New York
State General Municipal Law. To achieve the audit objective and obtain valid audit
evidence, our audit procedures included the following:
  ll We interviewed Village officials, employees and members of the finance
  committee and reviewed Board meeting minutes, resolutions and financial
  documents to gain an understanding of sewer operations and officials’
  oversight responsibilities regarding budgetary and fiscal control.
  ll We prepared budget-to-actual comparisons for revenues and appropriations
  to determine whether adopted budgets were reasonable and whether
  specific revenues were consistently and significantly overestimated.
  ll We analyzed the Village’s financial records for fiscal years 2014-15 through
  2018-19 to determine the results of operations.
  ll We reviewed sewer rate increases to determine their impact on revenues
  and whether they were sufficient to meet related expenditures.
  ll We reviewed the DOCCS contract language to determine the basis for the
  annual contribution.
  ll We reviewed the adopted 2019-20 budget to determine whether revenue
  and appropriation estimates were reasonable.
  ll We recalculated material annual revenues (residential, DOCCS and outside
  haulers) using actual billings, compared them with reported revenues and
  discussed any large variances with officials.
  ll We reviewed certain accounting entries affecting revenues and expenditures
  to verify whether they were supported. We discussed erroneous or missing
  entries with officials and modified our estimated revenues and expenditures
  based on this review.
  ll We identified and discussed with officials shared service cost procedures
  and percentage allocations that occurred during the 2014-15 through
  2019-20 fiscal years. We reviewed the actual costs for shared service
  expenditures including health insurance, workers’ compensation insurance,
  retirement, Social Security, unallocated insurance (e.g., general liability),
  administrative (meter reading and bookkeeping), vehicle replacements,
  building upgrades, a consulting service agreement and one mileage
  reimbursement (due to the material amount). We recalculated allocations to
  the sewer fund using adopted budgets and actual expenditures to determine
  whether the Village’s allocation methods were reasonable.
  ll We used available timekeeping records including time sheets, calendars
  and monthly reports to the New York State Department of Environmental
  Conservation to determine the number of recorded hours of sewer

  Of f ic e of t he New York State Comptroller  9