Town of Seneca Falls - Procurement (2018M-143)

Issued Date
September 13, 2019

[read complete report - pdf]

Audit Objective

Determine if goods and services were procured in accordance with the Town’s procurement policy and applicable statutes.

Key Findings

Town officials may not have:

  • Appropriately procured nine single or aggregate purchases over the competitive bidding thresholds (totaling $1.13 million).

Town officials did not:

  • Seek competition for eight professional service contracts totaling $384,400.

Key Recommendations

Town officials should:

  • Consider revising the procurement policy and procedures to specify documentation requirements, and ensure officials and employees follow competitive bidding statutes and policy requirements.
  • Develop procedures for procuring professional services to award contracts above a reasonable limit only after soliciting some form of competition, and provide guidance as to how such competition should be solicited, including written requests for proposals, written quotes or verbal quotes.

Town officials generally agreed with our recommendations and indicated they planned to initiate corrective action.