Purpose of Audit

The purpose of our audit was to evaluate the accuracy of payroll payments for the period June 1, 2015 through January 26, 2017.

Background

The Village of Port Chester is located in the Town of Rye in Westchester County and has a population of approximately 29,000. The Village is governed by an elected seven-member Board of Trustees. Budgeted appropriations for the 2016-17 fiscal year totaled approximately $38.6 million.

Key Findings

• The Village paid approximately $2.2 million for overtime wages to police department personnel.
• There are no written policies or procedures governing how leave time accrual records are maintained or who is responsible for monitoring the balances, and as a result, 54 percent of the employees we reviewed carried over vacation leave from year to year, even though it was not permitted by their collective bargaining agreements (CBAs).

Key Recommendations

• Evaluate whether to continue incurring police department overtime to cover staff shortages instead of hiring new officers.
• Ensure that all current CBAs have all current leave time provisions included, and develop a plan to correct the leave time accrual records and reduce the leave time totals so that they will be in accordance with CBAs.