Excuses not acceptable by Carlton officials after critical audit

Editor:

After reading the article in the Batavia newspaper and on Orleans Hub of the audit criticizing the Supervisor of the Town of Carlton, for inaccurate and incomplete accounting records, it became very disturbing to me. This is a big business and must be handled professionally and accurately in a timely fashion.

I have never heard of not depositing checks within seven business days to ensure sufficient funds are available to cover which is usually a minimum of three business days. The audit shows a check from Orleans County for $18,733 that was not cashed for five months and then when the Supervisor was asked why, it was stated that it was lost in the mail. In my opinion, that is an unacceptable excuse. There were also Town Justice checks that were never deposited and had to be reissued several months later. This tells me there is something seriously wrong with the procedure.

Findings also show the Town Board was not totally informed on certain issues and voting by the Board was not handled properly or even brought up for a vote.

When I attended the March 13, 2018 regular monthly Board Meeting, I questioned the audit under privilege of the floor. I asked what the audit revealed and what is being done to correct the situation. I was informed that deposits were made in the past years within 30 days with no issues and that a couple of checks were shredded, but the audit didn’t share that, only that it took months to correct the missing checks. I was truly hoping that we would have been informed of some troubling areas of the audit that have been addressed and will not happen in the future, but instead we received no true explanation and it would have been “swept under the rug” if I hadn’t brought the issue up.

One real disturbing piece of the audit was that we are a small municipality and the elected officials are just part-time. I have to differ since this is a big business and even though the elected officials are part-time, you know what is required of you when you run for office and the taxpayers expect that the job will be done correctly and to the best of your ability. As a Supervisor, you must be a team player with excellent communication skills so that everyone is lead to positive results to help our town move forward to a prosperous outlook.

Lastly, we have been informed that the books will be looked over by a CPA so that these mistakes are corrected, and the Town is not incurring additional costs from mistakes. If it takes time to correct mistakes twice, then for sure there was time to do it right once. As Town of Carlton taxpayers we need to show concern and interest of the direction of our town. There appeared to be no problem in the 2018 budget for 2% raises to reward a job well done. How about we reward our performance when it is done correctly and not just a given? Remember, your board meetings are the second Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m.

Regards,

Robin L. Roberts

Carlton