Treasurer and clerk critical of audit reports from state

The way the county treasurer and county clerk see it, the NYS Office of Comptroller didn't do a very good job of crossing its Ts and dotting its Is when it came to issuing audit reports on their offices last month.

While the reports only raised minor bookkeeping issues and found no real evidence of mismanagement, both Scott German and Don Read told the Ways and Means Committee yesterday that they were blown over by the negative audit reports.

"Essentially, the State Comptroller's Office didn't follow normal protocol," German said. "There was no entrance interview, no exit interview, and they always give 90 days to respond and have our response in the audit, and that didn't happen either."

Read said the auditor who hit his office never clarified how certain court records were being handled, just said they weren't being handled correctly.

"Everything she complained about in the audit, we do," Read said. "They said we don't keep a record of it because we don't keep it in a book. Well, we don't keep it in a book any more. We keep it in a folder, a printout. We no longer have to write in a book, get a book out. We put it on computer. That was acceptable the last time they did a court and trust fund audit. They didn't raise any issues, but this time they found fault with it."

Like the Treasurer's Office, Read wasn't given a chance to file a written response before the audit was made public.

The treasure was knocked for not notifying the state of $507 in a trust that needed to be turned over as abandoned. German said the state has changed the rules on the time frame of such notifications in the past few years, but never communicated that change to county treasurers. The lastest printed booklet from the state, which is what German's staff was using contained the incorrect information. (There is apparently a downloadable booklet that is corrected.) He said his staff now has the corrected state booklet.

Ray Cianfrini, chairman of the Legislature, said the couple of minor complaints in the audit report were really a credit to both county offices because nothing more serious was found.

German said his office is currently in the third month of what he expects to be a year-long audit, and he's sure some discrepancy or another will be found.

"I'm sure they're going to find things," German said. "They always do, but nothing major."