Town of Volney – Financial Operations Oversight

Audit Objective

Determine whether the Town of Volney (Town) Town Supervisor (Supervisor) performed his financial responsibilities and the Town Board (Board) provided adequate oversight of financial operations.

Key Findings

The Supervisor did not perform his financial responsibilities, and the Board did not provide adequate oversight of financial operations. As a result, the Town may have levied more taxes than necessary. Specifically:

• The Supervisor did not maintain financial accounting records or present records to the Board for audit as required by New York State Town Law (Town Law), Section 123. As a result, the Board was unable to monitor the Town’s overall finances or conduct required annual audits.
• The Board adopted budgets for fiscal years 2023 and 2024 that were not based on prior-year results of operations.
• Transparency was impaired because the Town’s 2021, 2022 and 2023 Annual Financial Reports (AFRs), a report of a town’s fiscal position and results of operations, were not filed with the New York State Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) in accordance with New York State General Municipal Law (GML), Section 30.

Recommendations

The audit report includes 10 recommendations to help the Supervisor perform his financial responsibilities and the Board to provide adequate oversight of financial operations.

Audit Period

January 1, 2023 – April 30, 2024. We expanded our scope period back to January 1, 2020 and forward to July 1, 2024 to determine whether AFRs and extensions were filed.

Background

The Town is located in Oswego County and is governed by the elected Board composed of the Supervisor and four Board members.

The Board is responsible for the general oversight of operations and finances. The Supervisor is the chief financial officer and is responsible for the Town’s day-to-day management and overall financial operations. During our audit period, the Town had two Supervisors; two bookkeepers and one accountant, refer to Appendix A for more detail.