Publisher's summary
The Board and Village officials did not establish adequate internal controls over Department cash receipts. The Board did not adopt written cash receipt policies, cash receipt duties were not properly segregated and the Supervisor did not adequately oversee the cash receipt function. As a result, the attendant had almost complete control over the cash receipts without adequate oversight. From August 1, 2011 through November 30, 2017, we reviewed approximately 2,000 receipts issued by Department employees for cash collections totaling approximately $264,000. We estimate that additional unreceipted cash of $14,000 was collected for swim gate fees during this period. However, the attendant reported cash collections of approximately $107,700, a cash shortage of more than $170,000. During this period, less than half the amount of cash receipted by employees was remitted to the Treasurer. OSC's Division of Investigations in conjunction with the Erie County District Attorney's Office jointly investigated this matter. In October 2018, the attendant admitted stealing more than $150,000 from the Village and altering public records from 2011 through 2017. She pleaded guilty to grand larceny, false filing and official misconduct in October 2018 and was sentenced in March 2019. As part of her sentence, she repaid the Village $156,374.
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The Supervisor told us that the attendant never reported any discrepancies when
she was reconciling the cash drawer. When asked to explain the cash shortages,
the attendant had no reasonable explanation. She told us that she always
ensured that the amount of cash and checks reported on the report matched the
total in the cash drawer and the corresponding receipts. She also told us that
she never noticed a discrepancy between cash totals and receipt totals when
reconciling the drawer.
Due to the lack of oversight and inadequate documentation of financial activity,
the attendant was able to misreport the amount of cash collected and receipted
without detection.9 OSC’s Division of Investigations in conjunction with the Erie
County District Attorney’s Office jointly investigated this matter.
The Attendant Did Not Properly Perform Job Duties or Maintain
Adequate Records
In addition to reconciling the cash drawer, the attendant was responsible for
accounting duties such as maintaining a manual record of revenues by program
(i.e., journal book), recording swim gate fees and organizing and securing
the Department’s copies of receipts and other records. We found that she did
not properly perform these job duties and may have destroyed or removed
Department records.
Swim Gate Fees – The Village’s swim center allows guests to use the pool by
paying a $5 daily entrance (gate) fee. These fees must be paid in cash and
receipts are not provided to guests. However, a pool attendant documents
the guest’s name and contact information on a sign-in sheet and records daily
attendance counts and cash collections on a daily report. The report, sign-in
sheets and cash collected are picked up by a Department employee and given to
the attendant for processing. The attendant was responsible for recording daily
attendance information and gate fees received in a computerized spreadsheet,
filing this documentation and ensuring that the money collected was included on
the summary cash reports and remitted to the Treasurer.
We requested the daily swim reports, sign-in sheets and spreadsheets for the last
seven years. However, the Supervisor was unable to locate these reports and told
us that the reports for the previous seven years were missing and appeared to
have been removed from the storage room. In addition, a Department employee
opened the swim gate fee spreadsheets maintained on the attendant’s computer
and found that the columns that recorded attendance and associated revenues
collected from gate fees had been deleted.10 When the Supervisor asked the
9 From August 1, 2011 through approximately August 31, 2017. New controls and procedures were implemented
as of September 1, 2017.
10 The date the spreadsheet files were modified was the same date we informed Department officials that we
planned to audit cash receipts.
Of f ic e of t he New York State Comptroller 5