Audit: Village paid out claims improperly

Tiny Centre Island often approved claims and paid employees without proper documentation -- in one case giving an unnamed former police chief $88,383 for leave time that could not be verified, state officials said Thursday.

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's office issued the findings Thursday of an audit examining village practices in 2008 and 2009. Centre Island, with one dead-end road and 450 residents, is the second-smallest Nassau village.

Auditors found that 99 claim disbursements from early 2009 totaling $173,940 were issued two months before approval by village trustees. By then, all but two checks had been cashed.

In all, the village paid about 800 claims worth $1.1 million during the audit period, a large percentage of them not approved by trustees beforehand.

"Village officials told us that they were not aware that they were required to audit and approve all claims before they were paid," the state wrote.

When it came to payroll methods, many of the same issues existed. The village board didn't have adequate policies to ensure paychecks and leave-time accruals were accurate, auditors said.

Beyond the ex-chief's payout, Centre Island lacked resolutions or contracts to document $258,100 in salaries or wages for its clerk-treasurer, highway supervisor, court clerk and a sanitation worker. Employees often tracked their own time accruals.

DiNapoli's office recommended that leave-time records should no longer be kept by the employee earning the time, and that the village authorize salary and wage schedules by resolution or contract.

In a response, Centre Island Mayor Lawrence Schmidlapp wrote that an administration change has resulted in many of the recommendations being implemented already.

He said trustees now review pay records for village employees, and that salaries will be listed in meeting minutes as they're determined.

At the time of the audit, Centre Island -- a community where Billy Joel and Rupert Murdoch own homes -- had an annual budget of $2.5 million.

"As you are aware," the mayor wrote, "independent time-keeping and verification in a small village can present challenges due to the few employees involved."