Report No. 2008-24
April 2008
Complete Audit Report
Our office conducted an audit of the Prosecuting Attorney of Cole County, Missouri.
The Prosecuting Attorney collects various fees that are deposited into one of two funds, depending on the type of fee, the Delinquent Tax Fund (DTF) and the Bad Check Fees Fund (BCFF). Both types of fees are to be expended by the Prosecuting Attorney for items related to the operation of his office; however, the disbursement procedures are different for each fund. For the DTF, manual checks, based on check requests prepared by the Prosecuting Attorney’s office, are issued by the County Treasurer and then disbursed by the Prosecuting Attorney, while disbursements from the BCFF go through normal county procedures.
During November and December 2006, the former Prosecuting Attorney authorized payments from the DTF totaling $23,000 to six employees as salary supplements and $4,000 to one employee as salary. None of these payments were included in the county’s payroll records, subjected to payroll tax withholdings, nor reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on the employees' W-2 forms. Although state law allows DTF monies to be used for salary supplements for existing employees on the staff of the Prosecuting Attorney's office, the majority of these salary supplement payments appear to represent additional compensation for services previously rendered and appear to be in violation of both the Missouri Constitution and an Attorney General's opinion.
Invoices and/or receipts were not submitted nor retained for most purchases on the office credit card. Some of the credit card purchases made by the former Prosecuting Attorney were from local restaurants and grocery stores totaling $2,659 during 2006 and 2005 (no similar purchases were noted during 2007). The purpose of these food purchases was not always adequately documented.
Some travel expenses were not adequately documented, including reimbursement of $2,635 to the former Prosecuting Attorney to attend a seminar in Colorado in January 2006, and credit card expenses for a conference in California in 2006 ($792) and airline tickets to Las Vegas for training in 2007 ($213).
The former Prosecuting Attorney authorized an expenditure from the DTF of $23,675 for a vehicle in 2005. Office policy is to purchase equipment on state contracts in lieu of soliciting bids; however, supporting documentation of the contract price was not maintained for this purchase.
There was no documentation to support how items purchased by the former Prosecuting Attorney from the DTF for the operations of other county officials' offices complied with state law. These purchases included $5,147 for computers and software for the County Auditor, $1,907 for printers for the Public Administrator, $3,821 for various computer equipment and software for the county's overall computer system, and $9,845 for legal fees for work performed on behalf of the County Auditor's office. The audit also questioned the legal authority for the transfer of monies to the county's General Revenue Fund.
Complete Audit Report
Missouri State Auditor's Office
moaudit@auditor.mo.gov
