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found numerous untimely deposits. For example, we found that 52 checks totaling $3,055 were deposited between 11 and 30 days later than the receipt date. We then expanded this testing to include all 17 participant check payments totaling $985 deposited between March 1, 2017 and May 31, 2017 that were not already examined in the original eight courses. While we found no significant exceptions with the majority of these deposits, we noticed that two checks were received by the Business Office and subsequently deposited 73 and 84 days after the Department indicated they were received on the registration form. On further review, we found that the Department previously requested the Business Office to issue a refund to the payers for both of these items because the corresponding classes were canceled. However, the Department had not yet submitted the checks to the Business Office for deposit. As a result, the Business Office issued refunds for payments that had not yet been deposited. The Business Office maintains a spreadsheet containing an itemized description of all items the Department forwards to them for deposit including identification of the form of payment, (e.g., cash, check or money order) and if the payment was in the form of check or money order number, the date, payer name, amount and date the Business Office receives the item is also included. We traced all 253 items totaling $13,769 received by the Business Office from the Department back to the Department’s handwritten summary of total amounts of cash and checks that was forwarded for all 34 of the spring 2017 semester courses offered and noted no significant exceptions regarding the total dollar amounts or form of the cash receipt. The Department did not remit all receipts for deposit in a timely manner or record the collection of all receipts in a press-numbered, duplicate receipts book that was routinely reviewed by an individual outside of the collection process. As a result, the District has an increased risk that cash receipts could be lost or misappropriated without detection. What Do We Recommend? The Board and District officials should: 1. Develop and adopt written policies and procedures for collecting, processing, recording and depositing Department cash receipts. 2. Ensure that Department duties are adequately segregated or implement compensating controls such as increased supervisory review of the Department’s work and a periodic reconciliation of the Department’s cash receipts activity by someone independent of the Department’s cash receipts process, such as the Treasurer. 4 Of f ic e of t he New York State Comptroller