YELLOW SHEET
Office of the State Auditor of Missouri
Claire McCaskill
|
YELLOW SHEET Office of the State Auditor of Missouri |
February 11, 2003
Report No. 2003-13
The following problems were discovered as a result of an audit conducted by our office of the City of Nixa, Missouri.
The City of Nixa paid incentive awards totaling $91,225 to various city employees during the year ending December 31, 2001 including a $25,000 payment to the City Administrator and payments totaling $58,900 to seven street employees. Further, the city purchased gift certificates totaling $3,070 during 2001 for employee birthdays and performance awards.
These incentive awards and gift certificates appear to represent additional compensation for services previously rendered in the form of bonuses and, as such, are in violation of the Missouri Constitution and are contrary to an Attorney General's Opinion. While a similar condition was also noted in our prior report, the city elected to disregard the prior recommendation.
The former City Administrator resigned in October 1999; however, payments totaling $14,469 were subsequently made over a three month period by the city to the administrator. The city indicated these payments represented severance pay. The City Administrator's contract did not provide for severance pay upon resignation.
The city did not obtain bids or retain adequate bid documentation for the following expenditures incurred in 2001 including trash hauling services ($400,742), fuel ($59,416), and backhoe services ($12,711).
The city solicited and received three bids for street materials in January 2000. The bid was awarded to a contractor that agreed to provide the specified paving, concrete work, and base rock outlined in the city's bid specifications at a cost of $328,978 during 2000. The city's bid specifications also requested the contractor to renew the bid in 2001. The city spent over $309,000 in 2000 and an additional $590,000 in 2001 on street paving, concrete, and base rock. Even though the scope of the street work and material costs increased significantly in 2001, the city did not rebid these materials.
Requests for proposals were not solicited in 2001 for professional services including: engineering services totaling over $93,000, electrical engineering services of approximately $53,000 and $9,825 to a CPA firm for their annual independent audit.
Some city transactions do not appear to be a prudent and necessary use of public funds, including: paving the driveway of the former Mayor in 1999 at a cost of $1,060 and paying $4,000 to the Nixa Fire Protection District for the city's annual fireworks display during 2001.
Despite increased activity, the Parks Department has not established a measurement system to allow for the effective evaluation of various park activities. Also, in 2001, the Parks Department Superintendent routinely requested the City Clerk to make checks payable to cash and then would cash the checks to make purchases for the department. The Parks Department spent more than $33,600 in cash on park activities, summer recreation, and special event items such as movies and meals. Due to inadequate documentation, it was difficult to determine the number of attendees at many of these activities to substantiate the costs incurred.
The Parks Department does not review daily collections and cash register tapes prior to transmitting the receipts to the city Finance Department. We noted the amount of receipts on the cash register tapes did not always reconcile to the amount transmitted to the city for deposit. For example on June 28, 2002, we noted apparent collections from one cash register totaling $104 that were not transmitted to the city. This difference was not investigated, and possible missing funds went undetected due to the lack of oversight by the Parks Department. Despite these weaknesses and differences, the city responded that they would continue with their current procedures. It is disappointing and unclear why the city does not recognize the importance of implementing the necessary accounting controls in these cash receipt areas.
During the two years ending December 31, 2001, the City Clerk and the Parks Department Superintendent were paid approximately $11,500 and $16,900, respectively, for overtime. Approval of this overtime was not documented in accordance with the city policy.
Also included in the audit are recommendations related to other park procedures, credit cards, cellular phones, accounting procedures, budgets, personnel matters, city ordinances and board minutes, city vehicle mileage and usage logs, and the Municipal Court. Many of the findings in the audit were noted in our prior report; however, no actions were taken to implement the recommendations.