YELLOW SHEET Office of the State Auditor of Missouri Claire McCaskill

Report No. 2000-102
September 26, 2000

IMPORTANT:  The Missouri State Auditor is required by Missouri law to conduct audits only once every four years in counties, like Oregon, which do not have a county auditor.  However, to assist such counties in meeting federal audit requirements, the State Auditor will also perform a financial and compliance audit of various county operating funds every two years.  This voluntary service to Missouri counties can only be provided when state auditing resources are available and does not interfere with the State Auditor’s constitutional responsibility of auditing state government. 

Once every four years, the State Auditor’s statutory audit will cover additional areas of county operations, as well as the elected county officials,  as required by Missouri’s Constitution.  

This audit of Oregon County included additional areas of county operations, as well as the elected county officials.  The following concerns were noted as part of the audit:

• Budgets were not prepared for several county funds.  Actual disbursements exceeded budgeted amounts for some funds.  It appears the county’s procedures and reports are not resulting in effective monitoring of some budgets.

• The county did not enter into a formal written agreement with the Oregon County Recycling Association.  According to the County Commission, the county verbally agreed to pay the Association $22,800 per year for its services.  However, this agreement was not discussed in the County Commission minutes and there was no documentation to support the amount paid.

• County employees include the lunch hour when reporting a 40 hour work week on their time sheets.  As a result, some employees were compensated for overtime even though they may have actually worked less than 40 hours.  This method is contradictory to the county personnel manual.  

The county did not report some payments made to employees as income and did not withhold any payroll taxes.  The county should review such payments with the IRS and take appropriate action. 

• The county does not have adequate procedures in place to track federal awards for the preparation of the schedule of expenditures of federal awards.  The county prepared a schedule for the years ended December 31, 1999 and 1998; however, the schedules did not include a majority of the programs the county was involved in.  Without an accurate schedule of expenditures of federal awards, federal financial activity may not be audited and reported in accordance with federal requirements which could result in future reductions of federal funds to the county.

• Two forfeiture cases where funds were distributed to the county did not appear to be handled in accordance with state forfeiture laws.

Also included in the audit are recommendations to improve the accounting  controls and procedures for the Sheriff, Health Center, and Senior Citizens’ Board.    Several of these issues have been noted in prior audits.