OGDENSBURG – An audit of the payroll operation at Ogdensburg City School District is critical of oversight of the payroll clerk.

While no discrepancies were found, “The payroll clerk controls multiple aspects of the payroll process with limited oversight,” said the audit from the state Comptroller’s Office. That criticism was the key finding of the audit.

The audit was done specifically to evaluate the district's payroll procedures to see if district officials had procedures to adequately ensure employees’ salaries and wages were accurately paid. It covered the period from July 1, 2014 through March 31, 2016.

The district’s budgeted payroll appropriations for the 2015-16 fiscal year were approximately $12.3 million.

“District officials should segregate the payroll clerk’s duties so that the clerk does not control all aspects of payroll transactions,” said the audit, which was released this week.

“If it is not feasible to adequately segregate these duties, District officials should establish appropriate compensating controls,” the audit recommendations said.

“Such controls include having someone independent of the payroll process review salary and wages entered into the payroll system and payroll change reports. An independent employee also should compare payroll registers to source documents,” it said.

No discrepancies in payroll records were found.

Although we did not find any discrepancies, the lack of adequate oversight of the payroll clerk’s work increases the risk that errors or irregularities could occur and remain undetected,” the report said.

As is usual in such audits, the results and recommendations have been discussed with district officials, and that they “agreed with our recommendation and indicated they planned to initiate corrective action,” the audit report said.

In their response to the report, the district agreed with the findings of the auditors and agreed to implement new procedures to comply with their suggestions.

The district operates three schools with about 1,800 students and 400 employees.