YELLOW SHEET Office of the State Auditor of Missouri Claire McCaskill

Report No. 2000-19
March 22, 2000

During our audit of the Thirty-First Judicial Circuit, Greene County, Missouri, we identified certain management practices which we believe could be improved.

Monthly reconciliations between the receipts, disbursements, cash balances and open-items are not performed for the child support account. A running cash balance is not maintained in the check register. The composition of child support receipts is not reconciled to the composition of deposits. Old outstanding checks are not disbursed in accordance with state law.

At December 31, 1998, outstanding checks over one year old totaling approximately $32,000 remained in the main child support bank account. In addition, a second child support bank account was maintained with a balance of approximately $15,600 at December 31, 1998, representing additional outstanding checks dating back to 1983.

The Circuit Division should adopt procedures to routinely follow up on outstanding checks and reissue them if the payees can be located. If the payees cannot be located or identified, these monies should be disposed of in accordance with state law.

The Circuit Division's fee account open-items listing includes some bonds and court deposits that date back to 1989. We noted bonds and court deposits totaling approximately $414,000 that were received prior to 1997. If it appears unlikely the remaining amounts due will be collected, a court order should be obtained to allow the balance in each case to be prorated among the various court costs as allowed by a 1973 Attorney General's Opinion.

Copy monies are not properly handled and recorded. Photocopy and certified copy fees totaling approximately $36,000 were deposited into the Circuit Clerk's supply account rather than being turned over to the County Treasurer, and there is no statutory provision for the Circuit Clerk to maintain custody of these fees. Bids were not solicited for some major purchases. These conditions were also noted in the prior audit report but no changes or improvements have been made.

The Greene County Circuit Clerk provided no responses to any of the current recommendations regarding the supply account.

The composition of receipts are not reconciled to the composition of deposits by the Associate Division. Some payments are held until the corresponding traffic ticket is received. As a result, some collections were not deposited in a timely manner. Also, receipts are not deposited on a timely basis by the Probate Division.

A law library budget was not prepared for the two years ended December 31, 1998 and 1997. Formal monthly bank reconciliations are not documented and monies are maintained in a noninterest-bearing checking account. Annual physical inventories of books purchased with law library funds are not performed.

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