Legislator George Borrello, R-Irving, at left, discusses the county’s formal response to the New York State Comptroller’s report that criticized investment and salary and benefit payments. P-J photo by Jimmy McCarthy

MAYVILLE — County officials have drawn a formal response to a report by the New York State Comptroller’s Office that criticized investment and salary and benefit payments.

Procedural fixes will be made on a few of the comptroller’s findings, but county officials say they won’t take action on all of them as they don’t agree with a few. County legislators on the Audit and Control Committee approved the formal response at Thursday’s meeting.

An audit released in January reviewed county investments along with payroll and benefits from January 2013 to January 2016. In the audit, it was found that the finance director at the time didn’t always invest funds in accordance with the county’s investment policy and general municipal law.

The comptroller’s office detailed losses on 13 bonds that were sold before maturity, including nine GMNA bonds for a loss of $246,410; two bonds issued by New York State public authorities for a loss of $221,544 and two U.S. Treasury securities totaling $27,727. The comptroller’s office also questioned the county for purchasing and then selling the obligations rather than holding them until maturity.

Further, the audit found salary payments to 23 elected officials and 94 management employees weren’t all calculated accurately. In addition, three elected officials weren’t supposed to receive pay for unused vacation time totaling $14,875 during 2013 and 2014.

A recommendation within the comptroller’s report stated the legislature should provide oversight of the investment program to ensure investments made are in the county’s best interest. In response to the recommendation, county officials will look to have an outside financial advisor conduct an annual review on current investment holdings.

Legislators George Borrello, R-Irving, and Charles Nazzaro, D-Jamestown, helped formulate the formal response with the Law Department. While the Audit and Control Committee holds a fiduciary responsibility over the investments, both legislators acknowledged committee members aren’t financial advisors, nor should they be.

“None of us are financial advisors and (the Comptroller’s Office) was basically charging us with being financial advisors,” Borrello said. “Their investment recommendations were, in my opinion, inappropriate in the sense that we were holding things to maturity and doing things (they said had) a negative impact on our returns, fund balance and taxpayers. I feel like they were fishing for things that weren’t there frankly.”

The comptroller also recommended the legislature establish adequate written policies and procedures to ensure elected officials and management employees are annually compensated at their approved salary amounts. Nazzaro said the county has followed a local law established in 1983 that allows elected officials the option to buy back unused vacation time. Nazzaro said a new local law will come before the legislature this year so they will no longer have that option.

“That would take effect during the next term of office for elected officials,” Nazzaro said, adding it would effect the county executive, county sheriff and county clerk positions.

As for the comptroller’s recommendation to recover salary and benefit overpayments, the county adjusted 2016 salaries prior to the end of the fiscal year. In addition, the county response states that converting the annual salary figure to a bi-weekly rate has been a county government practice for decades. The county’s response stated that it cannot be characterized as an unintended payroll error for that reason.

“It is the county’s position that an effort to recover salary payments in the past is not warranted nor practical,” the response states.

Borrello said he feels the county is giving an appropriate response to the Comptroller’s Office. While there’s consensus with a few recommendations, Borrello said there were some distortions in the report.

“There were some good recommendations in the comptroller’s suggestions,” Borrello said. “But some of the others made, the implication that elected officials did something inappropriate when it came to their vacation time is absolutely false. They followed procedure. I think the picture that was painted by the Comptroller’s Office was misleading and that’s probably the nicest thing I can say about it. Most of what was in there really painted an inappropriate picture of what happens here in the county.”