EARLVILLE – An audit of the Village of Earlville’s financial operations during a recent 12-month period found incomplete record keeping and a lack of financial reporting and oversight, particularly when collecting water rents.

In particular, it found that a lack of policies and procedures for collecting water rents resulted in only 38 percent of water customers being billed based on the Clerk-Treasurer’s estimates in July 2009. The New York State Office of Comptroller conducted the audit to review the village’s internal controls over selected financial operations for the period of June 1, 2009 to May 31, 2010.

“The village had no limit as to the number of times water customers can self-report meter readings,” the report stated.

The audit’s findings were released in late January. The village spent $16,000 on a consulting firm to revise the accounting records and to compile the annual financial reports for the audit. Since then, newly appointed Mayor William Excell said all of the errors have been corrected.