Member of the Salmon Rivers Council of Governments
The New York State Comptroller has completed the examination of the town’s financial condition and supervisor’s records for the period of January 1, 2017 – July 31, 2018. It was released May 29, 2019. It is available on this web site on the Documents, Forms, and Reports page, and directly at the following link:
The Comptroller’s web page with additional background related to the examination can be found at https://osc.state.ny.us/localgov/audits/towns/2019/parish-58.htm.
The New York State Comptroller’s Office recently released an audit of the town of Parish for the period of January 1, 2017 through July 31, 2018.
The audit is available at https://www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/audits/towns/2019/parish-58.htm, or at the link following.
The state comptroller’s office offered this summary of the report:
The Board needs to improve its monitoring of the Town’s financial operations and take timely action to maintain the Town’s financial stability. The Board did not adopt structurally balanced budgets and did not monitor the budgets throughout the year. As a result, the Town accumulated excessive fund balances in its general funds of about $1 million and deficit fund balances in its highway funds of over $1.1 million at the end of 2017. When combined together, the general and highway town-wide funds ended 2017 with a deficit fund balance of about $166,000. The Board did not fully understand the impact of appropriating fund balance each year. As a result, it did not adopt structurally balanced budgets that provided for sufficient recurring revenues to finance recurring expenditures. Furthermore, the Board did not adequately monitor the budget. Because officials did not maintain sufficient levels of fund balance in the highway funds to support current operations, the Town relied on interfund loans and short-term borrowings during our audit period. Finally, the Supervisor did not provide the Board with accurate financial reports for managing financial condition.