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May 27, 2026

Audits of various New York State municipal entities posted on the Internet by New York State's Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli

On May 26, 2026, New York State Comptroller DiNapoli announced the following City, Town, Village and Fire District, Fire Department and Fire Company audits had been issued.

Click on the text highlighted in color to access the audit posted on the Internet.

Nota Bene. Later this same date, May 26, 2026, Comptroller DiNapoli announced additional audits were posted on the Internet and these audits have been appended hereto, adding to NYPPL's original posting.

City of Buffalo – Budget Review (Erie County) Auditors completed a review of the city’s proposed 2026-27 budget and determined the general fund will have a projected budget deficit of approximately $103 million. City officials have historically adopted budgets that relied on nonrecurring revenues to fund operations and underestimated expenditures. Therefore, city officials relied on and depleted fund balance to finance budget deficits. As a result, the city no longer has surplus fund balance available to help balance the proposed budget.

Kerhonkson Fire District – Board Oversight (Ulster County) The board did not provide adequate oversight of the district’s financial activities and was not transparent. The district’s required annual financial report (AFR) was last filed in 2007, more than 18 years ago. In addition, the board’s inadequate review of claims led to claims potentially being paid without sufficient budgetary appropriations available.

Midway Fire Department – Disbursements (Albany County) The board did not ensure disbursements had adequate supporting documentation, were for appropriate purposes and were properly approved by the trustees. Officials also were not aware of the proper use of Foreign Fire Insurance tax proceeds and made unauthorized disbursements using those funds.

North Brookfield Fire District – Board Oversight (Madison County) The board did not adequately oversee the district’s financial operations. The board did not require the secretary-treasurer to maintain appropriate accounting records, prepare bank reconciliations, provide adequate monthly financial reports or file AFRs with DiNapoli’s office, as required by state law. As a result, the board had insufficient information to properly oversee the district’s financial operations and make informed financial decisions. Because the board did not provide sufficient oversight of the secretary-treasurer’s duties, there was also an increased risk that funds could be misappropriated.

Schodack Landing Fire District No. 1 – Claims Auditing (Rensselaer County) Auditors reviewed 60 claims totaling $163,940 approved by the board. Except for minor issues auditors discussed with district officials, the claims were mathematically correct, supported and for valid district purposes. There were no recommendations as a result of this audit.Taberg Volunteer Fire Company Inc. – Financial Activities (Oneida 

County) The board and treasurers did not ensure financial activities were properly recorded and reported and that funds were safeguarded. Because the treasurers did not maintain adequate financial records and written financial reports, the board and membership lacked the information to effectively oversee the company’s financial activities. In addition, weaknesses in recordkeeping and controls over cash collections and disbursements prevented the board from ensuring that all collections were deposited and that payments were made only for valid company purposes.

Town of Catharine – Transparency of Fiscal Activities (Schuyler County) The board did not conduct an annual audit of the supervisor’s financial records and reports for fiscal year 2024 in accordance with state law. In addition, the supervisor did not file the 2024 AFR with DiNapoli’s office, as required by state law. The supervisor also did not provide the board with complete monthly financial reports.

Town of Fremont – Transparency of Fiscal Activities (Sullivan County) The board did not conduct an annual audit of the supervisor’s financial records and reports for fiscal year 2024 in accordance with state law. In addition, the supervisor did not prepare and file AFRs with DiNapoli’s office for the last eight fiscal years, as required by state law. The supervisor did not provide the board with complete, accurate and reliable monthly financial reports.

Town of Greenville Transparency of Fiscal Activities (Greene County) The board did not conduct an annual audit of the supervisor’s financial records and reports for fiscal year 2024 in accordance with state law. In addition, the supervisor did not file the 2024 annual AFR with DiNapoli’s office, as required by state law. The supervisor also did not provide the board with complete, accurate and reliable monthly financial reports.

Town of New Hudson – Transparency of Fiscal Activities (Allegany County) The board did not conduct an annual audit of the supervisor’s financial records and reports for fiscal year 2024 in accordance with state law. In addition, the supervisor did not prepare and file the 2020 through 2022, and 2024 AFRs with DiNapoli’s office, as required by state law. The supervisor filed the AFR for fiscal year ending Dec. 31, 2023, on Aug. 28, 2025 – 544 days after the due date. Furthermore, the supervisor provided the board with incomplete monthly financial reports.

Town of Pamelia – Transparency of Fiscal Activities (Jefferson County) The board did not conduct an annual audit of the supervisor’s financial records and reports for fiscal year 2024 in accordance with state law. In addition, the supervisor did not prepare and file the 2022 through 2024 AFRs with DiNapoli’s office, as required by state law. The supervisor did not provide the board with complete monthly financial reports.

Town of Spencer – Procurement (Tioga County) The board and town officials did not always seek competition for purchases. One board member had a prohibited conflict of interest that arose from his paving company providing services to the town totaling approximately $12,911 during the audit period. Because officials did not always solicit competition for goods and services or avoid conflicts of interest, they cannot guarantee that they secured the most favorable terms and conditions.

Village of Churchville – Electric Utility Services Billing and Collections (Monroe County) The board did not provide adequate oversight of electric utility services billing and collections. The board did not request financial or electric utility services use, billing or collection reports or reconciliations to monitor operations. The board also did not review and approve use and billing adjustments or develop and adopt billing and collection policies to provide guidance to officials and employees. As a result, officials and employees developed informal procedures that did not adequately segregate duties or include periodic reviews and reconciliations and significantly impacted the timely identification and correction of billing errors.

Village of Fredonia – Financial Condition (Chautauqua County) Auditors found that trustees did not fully understand the village’s financial condition and relied heavily on the treasurer for guidance. The board did not take appropriate actions to maintain the village’s fiscal stability, such as adopting structurally balanced budgets and written multiyear capital and financial plans and ensuring that the treasurer filed annual statements and AFRs when required. As a result, the village’s financial condition deteriorated over a six-year period from the 2019-20 through 2024-25 fiscal years.

Village of Rhinebeck – Claims Auditing (Dutchess County) The board did not properly audit all claims before payment. Without a thorough review of all claims to be paid, errors and irregularities may continue to occur and remain undetected and uncorrected, unsupported payments could continue to be made, and improper or unnecessary payments may not be detected and corrected. Without evidence of competition attached to claims, taxpayers have less assurance that purchases were made in the most prudent and economical manner.

N.B. Later this same date, May 26, 2026, the Comptroller announced the audits described below were also posted on the Internet.

New York City Department of Social Services – New York City Department of Homeless Services: Oversight of Contract Expenditures of Samaritan Daytop Village, Inc. (Follow-Up) (2025-F-23) The New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS), an administrative unit of the New York City Department of Social Services, is responsible for providing transitional housing and services for eligible homeless families and individuals in New York City and for providing fiscal oversight of the homeless shelters. In July 2013, DHS contracted with Samaritan Daytop Village, Inc. (Samaritan), a city-based not-for-profit organization, to provide temporary housing, case management, housing referrals, placement services, and on-site medical and mental health services for men with mental illness at its 160-bed Myrtle Avenue Men’s Shelter for the period from August 2013 to June 2018. DHS is responsible for monitoring its contract with Samaritan to ensure reported costs are allowable, supported, and program related. A prior audit, issued in February 2024, found DHS was not effectively monitoring its contract with Samaritan and identified $566,556 of all reported costs that did not comply with requirements. DHS officials made some progress in addressing the issues identified in the initial audit report, partially implementing five recommendations and not implementing one.

New York City Department of Small Business Services: Facilitated Programs to Assist Small Businesses (2022-N-4) The New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS) contracts with outside entities known as Industrial Business Service Providers and Business Solutions Centers to support programs that assist businesses with identifying the best available financial products, working with lenders to package loans, collecting financial documents and completing forms, submitting final loan applications to lenders, following up to ensure disbursement of funds, providing post-financing advisement, and training. The 76 businesses reviewed obtained facilitated loans of $97,363,816; however, SBS does not collect data on the beneficial effects of this financing, such as the creation of new jobs or strengthening of the businesses’ operations. Additionally, SBS does not verify program performance in terms of the number and amount of the facilitated loans. Instead, the program results are self-reported by the vendors.

Department of Health: Maternal Health (Follow-Up) (2025-F-26) Maternal mortality refers to deaths of pregnant persons during pregnancy or within a year of the end of pregnancy. Severe maternal morbidity is defined as unexpected outcomes of pregnancy, labor, or delivery that result in short- or long-term consequences to a person’s health. To address alarming rates of maternal mortality and morbidity, as well as racial disparities in these rates, New York established the Taskforce on Maternal Mortality and Disparate Racial Outcomes in April 2018, and it produced 10 recommendations. The recommendations required a collaboration between public and private entities, with DOH being a main player in the majority of the recommendations. A prior audit, issued in July 2024, found that while DOH had made progress in addressing the recommendations to improve maternal health, data showed that maternal mortality and morbidity rates in New York State had not decreased since the Taskforce was established in 2018, and the maternal mortality rate had actually increased, along with increasing racial disparities statistics. DOH officials made significant progress in addressing the issues identified in the initial audit report, implementing the report’s one recommendation.

New York City Public Schools: Privacy and Security of Student Data (2023-N-6) New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) uses Automate the Schools as its main student information system, which standardizes and automates the collecting and reporting of student data. NYCPS maintains and uses students’ personally identifiable information for a variety of educational purposes and is responsible for safeguarding student data and ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of its information systems. Auditors found gaps in and misalignments of policies relating to data privacy and security, data classification, risk assessment, and backup and recovery. Additionally, NYCPS does not always report breaches or notify affected parties within the required time frames or maintain a comprehensive list of all applications used by each school that would help it better understand its environment, the type of information being stored, and the risks associated with the data.

New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development and New York City Housing Development Corporation: Housing for Seniors (Follow-Up) (2025-F-19) The New York City (NYC) Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and NYC Housing Development Corporation (HDC) work together to administer several programs to assist in the development and rehabilitation of housing for senior citizens, including the Senior Affordable Rental Apartments Program (SARA Program), federal Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly Program (Section 202 Program), and HPD’s Senior Citizen Homeowner Assistance Program (SCHAP). A prior audit, issued in July 2023, reviewed a sample of four developments assisted through the SARA Program—HANAC Corona Senior Residence in Queens, Serviam Heights LLC in the Bronx, Victory Plaza in Manhattan, and Woodlawn Senior Living in the Bronx—and one development assisted through the Section 202 Program, Bensonhurst Housing for the Elderly in Brooklyn. Despite the scarcity of affordable housing for seniors, the audit found several instances where senior housing units were left vacant for long periods of time, senior housing units were not always awarded to the correct applicants, and SCHAP requirements were not met. HPD and HDC officials made some progress in addressing the problems identified in the initial audit report. Of the initial report’s six audit recommendations, three (addressed to HDC) were implemented, two (addressed to HPD) were partially implemented, and one (also addressed to HPD) was not implemented.

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Editor in Chief Harvey Randall served as Director of Personnel, State University of New York Central Administration; Director of Research, Governor's Office of Employee Relations; Principal Attorney, Counsel's Office, New York State Department of Civil Service; and Colonel, JAG, Command Headquarters, New York Guard. Consistent with the Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations, the material posted to this blog is presented with the understanding that neither the publisher nor NYPPL and, or, its staff and contributors are providing legal advice to the reader and in the event legal or other expert assistance is needed, the reader is urged to seek such advice from a knowledgeable professional.

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