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Town board receives forensic audit; comptroller outlines scope and next steps
Summary
The Town Board received a forensic audit covering up to 2023; Comptroller Kimberly Gapwine said the forensic review digs into general-ledger detail beyond the annual audit. Members agreed to post the report, ask department heads for responses and hold a detailed discussion next week.
Comptroller Kimberly Gapwine told the Town Board that the forensic audit delivered on Jan. 27 examines transaction-level detail in the general ledger rather than the sampling approach used in a routine annual audit. “The forensic audit is more in-depth,” Gapwine said, describing how forensic reviewers trace every line behind roll-up balances and identify unreconciled entries she called “plugs.”
Gapwine said her office reconciled cash for 2023 and part of 2024 after finding reconciling differences that dated back multiple years; she said some 2022 entries still contained unsupported plug entries. “There’s nothing to back it up,” Gapwine said of those plug entries, adding that her team corrected bank reconciliations for the periods under her management.
Board members asked which years the audit covered and whether previously identified problems had been fixed. One member asked Gapwine to review the auditors’ recommendations and report back on which items her office had corrected since taking office; Gapwine said she would do so and that many of the remaining findings fall to other departments.
Members agreed the audit is a public document. “I think that we should post this on the website,” the Chair said, and the board asked staff to circulate the audit to department heads with a request for written responses. The board scheduled a fuller public discussion at next week’s meeting so department heads will have time to review the report and prepare follow-up.
Gapwine highlighted a budgetary concern discussed in the audit: roughly $8,000,000 in unspent debt-service funds that may require action, and she warned the board that some global policy decisions will be needed to address certain findings. The board concluded the item for today as a receipt-and-review step and set a substantive review for the next meeting.
