Main Banner

NEWS from the Office of the New York State Comptroller
Contact: Press Office 518-474-4015

State Comptroller DiNapoli Releases School District Audits

July 1, 2021

New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli today announced the following school district audits were issued.

Phelps-Clifton Springs Central School District – Network Access (Ontario County and Wayne County)

District officials did not ensure that their network access controls were secure. Officials did not regularly review network user accounts and permissions to determine whether they were appropriate or needed to be disabled. As a result, auditors identified 139 unneeded user accounts, 36 unneeded generic or shared user accounts and five user accounts with unnecessary administrator permissions. Officials also did not maintain hardware or software inventory records. In addition, sensitive information technology control weaknesses were communicated confidentially to officials.

Tupper Lake Central School District – Records and Reports (Franklin County and St. Lawrence County)

District officials did not maintain complete, accurate and timely accounting records and reports to allow officials to effectively manage financial operations and capital projects. Board oversight was lacking. Officials did not provide support for 12 of the 15 balance sheet accounts auditors reviewed. Also, officials did not record journal entries in a timely manner. Only four of the 349 journal entries for 2018-19 and only 60 of the 292 journal entries for 2019-20 were recorded during each year. Officials also did not properly account for and close completed capital projects. As a result, $359,427 in unexpended funds were not used to pay related debt, which could have reduced the district’s tax levies, and $480,853 in project expenditures were not submitted for timely reimbursement. In addition, officials did not submit the 2016-17 through 2019-20 annual financial reports, state aid claim forms and independent audit reports in a timely manner, delaying scheduled state aid payments ranging from $49,607 to $345,221.


Find out how your government money is spent at Open Book New York. Track municipal spending, the state's 180,000 contracts, billions in state payments and public authority data. Visit the Reading Room for contract FOIL requests, bid protest decisions and commonly requested data.