YELLOW SHEET Office of the State Auditor of Missouri Claire McCaskill

March 29, 2001

Report No. 2001-28

 The following concerns were discovered as a result of a review conducted by our office of the Crime Victims Compensation Program.

Missouri state law requires a crime victims compensation fee to be assessed on each criminal conviction in each court in the state.  State law also requires the court clerks to distribute ninety-five percent of the fees collected to the state Department of Revenue at least monthly.  The Department of Revenue deposits these fees into the Crime Victims Compensation Fund, the Services to Victims Fund and the State Forensic Laboratory Fund in accordance with state law.

As noted in our prior audit, the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations has not established procedures to ensure that the Crime Victims Compensation Program receives all crime victim fees assessed and collected by the courts.  From October to December 1999, the labor department followed-up on recommendations, concerning Crime Victims Compensation fee collections and distributions, issued in State Auditor’s Office reports on various state courts.  As a part of this follow-up, the Crime Victims Compensation Program sent letters to seven state courts; however, no follow-up letters have been issued since December 1999.  In addition, no other procedures exist to identify courts not properly remitting Crime Victims Compensation fees to the Department of Revenue.

During our review of payments made to the state, we noted that the City of Joplin did not remit Crime Victims Compensation fees from January to October 1999 and from December 1999 to May 2000.

We also noted inconsistent and untimely payments from the City of St. Louis during the two years ended June 30, 2000.  For example, several months were noted where payments were not made appropriately and in May 2000, $208,600 was remitted to the Department of Revenue (municipal payments averaged approximately $35,000 per month for this time period).  In addition, all payments for the City of St. Louis were generally made at least two months late.  The Crime Victims Compensation Program did not identify this situation and therefore was not able to ensure that Crime Victims Compensation fees were properly assessed and collected by the City of St. Louis and that the fees were remitted to the Department of Revenue in a timely manner.

The Department of Labor and Industrial Relations needs to establish procedures to recognize situations such as the City of Joplin and the City of St. Louis, where Crime Victims Compensation fees are not being remitted to the state as required by state law. 

The Services to Victims Fund was established by state law, allowing the Department of Public Safety to contract with public or private agencies to provide assistance to crime victims through direct services, emergency services, crisis intervention counseling and victim advocacy.  To obtain funding from the Services to Victims Fund, these agencies/shelters must submit an annual application to the Department of Public Safety.  The Department of Public Safety reviews each applicant for eligibility, programs offered, funding requested, etc.  If the application is approved by the Department of Public Safety, a contract is awarded.

The Services to Victims Fund application packet includes financial and administrative guidelines.  According to a monitoring provision contained in the financial and administrative guidelines, the Department of Public Safety is required to monitor each contract award at least once for each contract period (12 months) and prepare a report documenting the results of this monitoring.

During our review of 25 Services to Victims Fund contracts, we noted that 16 had not been properly monitored for the applicable contract periods. To ensure the funds are utilized for the intended purpose, to ensure the quality of the program, and to ensure agencies/shelters are in compliance with state and federal guidelines, formal on-site monitoring procedures should be performed on a regular basis and documented.

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