State audit faults Moreau budget practices

MOREAU, N.Y. » A state comptroller’s audit faults the Town of Moreau for making unrealistic budget estimates, having unreasonable fund balance levels, and failure to develop a multi-year financial and capital plan.

The report is for the period Jan. 1, 2015 to March 31, 2017.

But Supervisor Todd Kusnierz, who took office Jan. 1, said the town began taking steps to address issues raised by the comptroller before the report came out this month. “We really restructured the budget this year to accommodate concerns the comptroller had,” he said. “We’re going to do more. We don’t want to take any more money out of our taxpayers’ pockets to maintain government than we have to.”

Kusnierz, a long-time former councilman, credited former Supervisor Gardner Congdon, who decided not to seek re-election, for letting him play a major role in developing Moreau’s $8.9 million budget for 2018. One of biggest changes was eliminating a special fire protection tax. By doing so, the town can put some county sales tax money in its General Fund.

With regard to budgeting, the audit said revenue and spending estimates for the town-wide general fund were reasonable, but not so for the part-town general, part-town highway, water and sewer funds.

For example, for the part-town general fund, the board underestimated revenues by a combined total of $629,000 — 201 percent — in 2015 and ‘16, and overestimated appropriations by more than $217,000, or 43 percent, the audit said.

Likewise, sales tax revenue exceeded estimates by $490,000 and $116,000, respectively, for the two years.

This resulted in excessive fund balance that increased by more than $1.4 million in some accounts, the audit says.

When such money accumulates, it is “unnecessarily withheld instead of being used to benefit the residents,” the audit says.

“In some cases, none of the appropriated fund balance was used,” the report says. “This has resulted in the town accumulating excessive fund balances in the part-town general fund, sewer fund and water districts 2, 3, 4 and 5.”

Fund balance for the water districts is about $3.1 million. At the same time, fund balance for the General Fund has steadily declined, Kusnierz said.

But excess water district money can’t be transferred to the General Fund because water districts are user-based, he said.

The town might reduce water and sewer district surplus funds by using such money for operations and reducing the rates people pay, Kusnierz said.

The comptroller’s office said the town should establish written policies and procedures governing the budgeting process, which include defining the amounts of unexpended surplus funds; and that it should develop a comprehensive multi-year financial plan to establish objectives for funding longterm needs.

These plans should be monitored and updated on an ongoing basis, the audit says.

The report also says the town should use identified unexpended surplus funds to:

• reduce property taxes and sewer and water user charges. • Funding necessary reserves. • Financing one-time expenditures.