BILL NUMBER: S6169

SPONSOR: KENNEDY
 
TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend the transportation law, in relation to
the state single audit program

 
PURPOSE OF THE BILL:

The purpose of this bill is to amend the transportation law, in relation
to the state single audit program.  Summary of provisions:

Section 1. This bill would amend Article 2, Section 21 of the transpor-
tation law to increase the State Single Audit (SSA) reporting threshold
from $100,000 to the current federal threshold. Additionally, this bill
would amend the transportation law to change the due date for submission
of the annual SSA report from October 15 to October 31.

Section 2. Effective Date.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

              

This bill would amend Article 2, Section 21 of the New York State Trans-
portation Law to increase the State Single Audit (SSA) reporting thresh-
old from $100,000 to the current federal threshold.  Currently, munici-
palities and public authorities which spend over $100,000 from funding
received via State transportation programs, projects, grants, contracts
or agreements, and which are required to have a Federal Single Audit
(FSA) performed must submit a State Single Audit (SSA) report to NYSDOT.
The $100,000 threshold has been in place since the inception of the SSA
program in 2001 and should be modified to reflect inflationary changes.
Such adjustments have taken place at the Federal level and the FSA
threshold has twice increased since 2001; this amendment recognizes that
similarly, the SSA threshold should also be increased. This bill adopts
the Federal threshold such that future changes to the Federal threshold
would be incorporated at the State level as well.

Additionally, this bill would amend the Transportation Law to change the
due date for submission of the annual SSA report from October 15 to
October 31. Current law requires NYSDOT to annually report to the gover-
nor, the temporary president of the senate and the speaker of the assem-
bly on the benefits and costs of the SSA program. The SSA filing
requirements are contingent on the recipients having to file a FSA, and
the system used to track submission of the FSA reports nationwide is the
Federal Audit Clearinghouse (FAC).  Approximately 75% of the FSA filers
in New York State have a fiscal year end date of December 31, making
September 30 their deadline for filing their FSA reports. In the past,
the FAC website has experienced congestion and delays in processing the
large number of report s received around the September 30 due date.
Further, the reports may not be officially accepted by the website for
up to five business days (or longer if corrections need to be made).
This leaves very little time for NYSDOT to  
1 determine if a recipient
is required to file a SSA,  
2 review the applicable SSA reports, and
 
3 compile the annual SSA report for the Governor and Legislative lead-
ers by the current due date of October 15. Extending the due date for
this annual report to October 31 will provide NYSDOT additional time to
process the relevant data needed to compile and issue the annual SSA
report and allow for any late filers to be included in the report.

 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
New bill.

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.