COMPTROLLER’S AUDIT TO RESULT IN TIGHTER CONTROLS OVER COUNTY CHECKS

The county will gain tighter control over some of its disbursements as a result of a Comptroller’s audit of county Treasurer’s Office procedures issued today, Comptroller Howard Weitzman said.

“The county’s long-standing practice of writing manual checks without oversight presented an opportunity for abuse as well as for errors in county bookkeeping,” Comptroller Weitzman said. “I am happy to report that as a result of our audit, the Treasurer has agreed that the Comptroller’s Office should review and authorize manual checks prior to their issuance by the Treasurer’s Office.

“As we assume this responsibility, the Comptroller’s Office will ensure that manual checks are subjected to proper scrutiny and entered promptly into the county’s computerized financial system. Although this audit was limited to procedures used in the Treasurer’s Office, we expect to undertake a further examination of checks written during the period when there was no appropriate oversight.”

In addition to routine disbursements such as payroll checks, the Treasurer’s Office authorizes, prepares, signs and issues 800-1,000 manual checks each month, the audit found. The majority of these checks are payments to third parties, towns, villages and municipalities. The payments are similar to payments currently processed through the Vendor Claims Section of the Comptroller's office.

Commenting on the administration’s agreement to transfer review and authorization of such disbursements to the Comptroller, Arthur Gianelli, Deputy County Executive for Budget and Finance, said, “Once again, the administration has been able to work with the Comptroller's Office to take a common sense approach to fixing a broken process inherited from our predecessors. We've agreed to apply the same level of oversight to manual checks as we currently do to the vast majority of payments through the county's financial control system. The Comptroller should be applauded for his analysis.”

In Nassau County, responsibility for financial disbursements is shared between the Comptroller’s Office and the Treasurer. The Comptroller oversees the vendor claims process, routing approved payments through the county’s computerized financial control system. The Treasurer’s Office manages the county’s debt and investments, processes incoming cash, prints and distributes payroll checks and payments to vendors, and handles many other cash management functions.

The audit, in addition to identifying the need to transfer manual check authorization functions to the Comptroller’s Office, also found other areas in need of tighter control, including a lack of written procedures and instances of insufficient segregation of duties.

The revised procedures for manual checks are a part of the Comptroller’s broader initiative to tighten the county’s financial control systems and procedures. That initiative has included issuing directives to county departments establishing policies on a variety of subjects, including internal financial controls, petty cash, and handling of cash receipts. The directives are posted on the Comptroller’s Web site, in keeping with the Comptroller’s policy of transparency in government.

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Corrective Action Plan (~144kB - 5 pages pdf file )

Limited Review of County Treasurer's Office Procedures (~ 221 kb, 40 pages, .pdf file)