Oncenter audit finds sloppy financial controls, and taxpayers pay the price

Syracuse.com reported that when Oncenter officials walked into the Onondaga County Legislature chamber Tuesday, they had two uncomfortable confessions to make.

First, they were out of money. They asked for $575,000 from the county to pay their bills — on top of the $2.1 million the county gives them each year.

Second, Oncenter’s latest financial report card was the kind that gets children sent to their rooms.

A recent audit of Oncenter’s 2008 finances by independent accounting firm Testone, Marshall & Discenza concluded that Oncenter’s sloppy financial controls created “more than a remote likelihood” that significant accounting errors, or even fraud, could go undetected.

Oncenter, a nonprofit corporation that manages the county’s convention center, theaters, parking facilities and War Memorial, is required by its contract to provide quarterly financial reports to the Legislature and other county officials.

But the corporation’s finances have been in disarray for the past year during a shakeup in top management. The Testone audit of 2008 results, produced Tuesday during a meeting of the Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee, was Oncenter’s first financial report to the Legislature in more than a year.

It listed several “significant deficiencies” in the corporation’s money management, including: Read more here.