Erie County Attorney’s Office failed to collect $611,000
The Erie County attorney‘s Office failed to collect $611,000 in reimbursements owed to the county for its payments to programs that provide lawyers for poor clients who can’t afford an attorney, according to an audit by the county Comptroller’s Office.
The county department did not recognize or pursue nearly $482,000 in reimbursements owed to the county from the state, the audit concluded. It also failed to recover $130,000 paid to the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo that should have been reimbursed.
The Erie County Comptroller’s Office this year began examining how arts and cultural groups have spent millions of dollars in county grants, totaling more than $7 million a year. It found some troubling expenditures.
“The good thing is, we’re going to get back most of this money,” said Comptroller Kevin Hardwick. “We’re going to be aggressively pursuing the reimbursement that we should get. This is more than half a million dollars that would have been lost.”
People are also reading…
The audit released this week looked at indigent legal services grants involving the county’s law department from 2015 through 2022. It found that money owed to the county from the state for two major claims was never collected because of missing or incomplete paperwork. Another case involved a claim for $19,050 that languished for seven years, resulting in the county being unable to belatedly recover those funds.
“We are in a position to rather easily resolve most of these issues with only $19,050 of the $611,824 uncollectable,” County attorney Jeremy Toth said in his audit response letter, adding that “given the enormous dollar amount of funding that flows in and out of this office for these programs, this is literally a very small fraction.”
Erie County attorney Jeremy Toth.
Legal representation for low-income residents facing criminal charges comes from both the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo and the Erie County Bar Association’s Assigned Counsel Program. The county pays for the bulk of the costs associated with these programs and is reimbursed for its expenses from the state. But the Comptroller’s Office found that a number of the county’s reimbursement claims either weren’t made or weren’t processed because they weren’t complete.
Money owed by Legal Aid
Aside from money owed by the state, this audit also found that the County attorney‘s Office overpaid the Legal Aid Bureau for amounts totaling $130,050. The bureau received a Payroll Protection Program loan from the federal government that covered bureau personnel expenses and should not have been paid for that again with county money, according to the audit.
Overpayments are supposed to be reimbursed by Legal Aid but never were, and the county never followed up to request that money back, according to the Comptroller’s Office.
A related audit done of the County attorney‘s Office over the summer also found the Legal Aid Bureau failed to reimburse the county for $555,140 in surplus money that it should have returned in 2020 and 2021.
David Schopp, executive director of the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo, said the bureau has always been aware that it has excess funds that are technically owed back to the county.
More than $114,000 in cash has gone missing from the Erie County Clerk’s Office since January of last year, and County Comptroller Kevin Hardwick said he’s concerned a thief is still working in county government despite mounting evidence of fraud.
“If the county wants it all back, we can pay it back tomorrow,” he said. “We have never intended to just keep money from the county.”
The agency’s contract with Erie County allows the Legal Aid Bureau to carry over some surplus money if the county administration is in agreement, but due to administrative turnover and delays associated with the audits done this year, he said, the agency’s meeting with the county to settle on repayment has not occurred for several years. A meeting between the county and Legal Aid Bureau is scheduled for early next year, he said.
Fixing the problem
In a four-page audit response to the Comptroller’s Office, Toth agreed that his law department failed to collect the money owed and said the department “will immediately take steps to follow your outlined recommendations” to recover the money owed from the state and the Legal Aid Bureau and improve its claims handling process.
Auditors recommend that quarterly reviews be done to routinely follow up on any outstanding and unresolved claims. In addition, auditors found that supporting documentation for the claims was not retained, either in paper or electronic form, and recommended that the law department retain such documents for six years, as required.
Auditors also faulted the Comptroller’s Office’s own Accounts Payable Division for approving payment transactions without verifying whether supporting documentation was provided.
While the county attorney generally agreed with the audit findings, he said in his response letter that his department is hamstrung by the lack of a dedicated accountant for this work. An accountant will be added to the law department next year. He also said the funding of indigent legal services is extremely complicated, and the fact that only a small fraction of the claims were problematic is a sign of the solid work done by the department overall.
Deputy Budget Director Mark Cornell said the county should be able to get reimbursed fairly easily. Both he and Toth also said they are going to start storing supporting required documentation in digital form instead of getting rid of huge stacks of paper documents by shuffling it on to the state, as it has in the past.
Get local news delivered to your inbox!
Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter.
Source link
Attorneys and law firms can elevate their online presence with professionally written content from SEO Content Writing Services monthly plan. Our team of experienced writers specializes in crafting blog posts, articles, and written content that accurately reflect the expertise and knowledge of our clients in the legal field. With a keen eye for detail and a thorough understanding of legal terminology, we provide high-quality writing that helps our clients stand out from their competition and engage with their target audience. Trust SEO Content Writing Services for one time article writing or monthly written content to handle all of your written content needs and showcase your law firm's expertise.
If you need written content, blog posts, or articles professionally written for your website, we can help. Go HERE to find out more.
or email us here: myseowritingservices@gmail.com
To find out more about our article writing or blog post services, fill out the form, thank you.