Almond Town Supervisor Responds To Comptroller’s Audit
December 13, 2013
ALMOND, NY – Town of Almond officials met for final time in 2013, Town supervisor Dick Stuart, spoke on the issue of the Comptroller’s office doing an audit on the town books, saying that “the town has a tendency not to appropriate the money into the proper accounts so it just sat there accumulating for contingiencies, but that is not how the state wants it done, even though it was a small amount it was higher than it should be,” Stuart said.
This in response to State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s report about how the town board did not adopt a policy to address the level of unexpended surplus fund balance to be maintained. Officials say that as a result, the board’s budgeting practices have resulted in the town continuing to maintain excessive unexpended surplus fund balances in all four major operating funds.
According to officials, at the close of the 2012 fiscal year, the unexpended surplus fund balance of the general town-wide fund was 69 percent of budgeted appropriations for 2013, the general town-outside-village fund was 106 percent, the highway town-wide fund was 63 percent, and the highway town-outside-village fund was 85 percent.
Town of Almond board members report that they have changed their policy to address the issue, which had arisen during the 2012 fiscal year.
