Old Brookville failed to properly deposit cash received, audit states
State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli speaks on Feb. 17, 2014. Credit: Charles Eckert
The Village of Old Brookville failed to deposit cash receipts in a timely manner and did not have oversight procedures in place for deposits, an audit by the state comptroller’s office has found.
“The village did not have adequate internal controls over its cash collections,” Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office said in the audit, which was released last week.
Because cash deposits weren’t made in a timely manner and were not adequately recorded or reviewed, “the village has an increased risk that cash receipts could be lost, stolen or misappropriated without detection,” according to the audit.
State law requires villages to deposit cash within 10 days of receipt and to properly document the transactions.
In a written response to the audit, Old Brookville Mayor Bernard Ryba said the village would strengthen internal controls with written policies and procedures for collecting, processing, recording and depositing cash.
He also said that “going forward, the timeliness of deposits will be verified by a village official.”
Out of 728 payments totaling $3.9 million that the comptroller’s office reviewed over a year and a half, more than 100 were deposited after 10 days, the audit states. Some payments were held for as long as 56 days before being deposited, the audit found.
The audit also found that almost 200 payments totaling more than $2 million were collected without issuing receipts that had printed numbers on them for tracking purposes. Though the village maintains a cash payments log, the comptroller’s office said it was “not a sufficient alternative” to issuing “press-numbered receipts” which have tracking numbers printed on them.
The reviewed payments were a portion of the nearly $9.3 million received by the village during the audit period from Jan. 1, 2014, to July 31, 2015. The money received by the village included various fines, permit fees, property taxes and licenses. The reviewed payments included some from the Old Brookville police department, according to the audit.
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