YELLOW SHEET Office of the State Auditor of Missouri Claire McCaskill

December 23, 2003

Report No. 2003-118

IMPORTANT:  The Missouri State Auditor is required by Missouri law to conduct audits only once every four years in counties, like Grundy, which do not have a county auditor.  However, to assist such counties in meeting federal audit requirements, the State Auditor will also provide 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 it 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 Grundy County included additional areas of county operations, as well as the elected county officials.  The following concerns were noted as part of the audit:

• Policies and procedures related to ambulance service billings and collections are not adequate.  There are no written policies which address billing, collection, or write-off procedures.  The ambulance service could not provide a summary report of patient billings and reconciliations are not performed between the ambulance service and the County Treasurer.  The County Commission agreed with recommendations related to the ambulance service and stated they are working to improve policies and procedures.
  
• Concerns related to federal financial assistance included failure to prepare an accurate schedule of expenditures of federal awards.

• The county is experiencing a declining General Revenue Fund cash balance.  Disbursements have exceeded revenues for the past several years.  Although developing solutions to the county's financial problems will be difficult, the County Commission should take the necessary steps to improve the financial condition of the General Revenue Fund.  The County Commission indicated they have been very concerned about the General Revenue Fund.  They plan on putting a law enforcement sales tax issue on the April 2004 ballot, which they believe will stabilize the General Revenue Fund if the issue passes.  

• Various budgetary and published financial statement concerns were noted including the lack of budgets for some county funds, budget amendment procedures, budgeting a  2003 deficit ending fund balance for the General Revenue Fund, and failure to include activity of some county funds in the annual published financial statements.

• Weaknesses were noted in the Prosecuting Attorney's accounting controls and procedures related to bad check monies including inadequate segregation of duties and failure to maintain a log of all bad check complaints filed.  Concerns were also noted related to issuance of receipt slips, lack of documentation maintained for cash distributions and a large court ordered restitution account balance.

• The Sheriff maintains monies outside the county treasury including telephone commissions and monies received from snack sales.  Concerns were also noted related to inadequate segregation of duties, timeliness of deposits, and inmate monies.

The audit also includes some matters related to county commission meeting minutes, the property tax system, and general fixed assets.

Complete Audit Report