Town of Liberty – Justice Court Operations (2016M-336)

Issued Date
November 21, 2017

Purpose of Audit

The purpose of our audit was to examine the Court’s financial operations for the period January 1, 2015 through July 22, 2016.

Background

The Town of Liberty is located in Sullivan County. The Town, which has approximately 10,000 residents, is governed by an elected five-member Town Board. The Town has two elected Justices who oversee Court operations. The Court’s revenues for 2015 were $278,000.

Key Findings

  • The Justices allow the Clerk Manager to sign all disbursement checks.
  • The Justices did not reconcile unpaid tickets between the DMV and Court records to ensure defendants’ DMV records are accurate and fines are collected or tickets are referred to the DMV Scofflaw program.

Key Recommendations

  • Justices should sign all disbursement checks.
  • Periodically review and reconcile the DMV pending tickets report to the Court records to ensure that tickets are properly reported as paid or referred to the DMV Scofflaw program for enforcement, and document such review was performed.