YELLOW SHEET Office of the State Auditor of Missouri Claire McCaskill

Report No. 2006-51

August 2006

The following findings were included in our audit of the Office of Administration, Missouri Ethics Commission.

The Missouri Ethics Commission (MEC) was created by the Missouri Ethics Law of 1991.  The law provides for the MEC to have responsibilities for the enforcement of conflict of interest and lobbying laws and campaign finance disclosure laws. 

The Missouri Ethics Commission's enforcement authority is often limited or non-existent because some state laws are vague, confusing, and inconsistent.  Noted problems include:

• State law requires each lobbyist or lobbyist principal to file a report, due twice a year, describing proposed legislation or actions supported or opposed.   However, the law allows either the lobbyist or lobbyist principal to file this report and some principals have numerous lobbyists, which makes it difficult for the MEC to determine if all required reports were filed.  Furthermore, penalties are not allowed for late filers or non-filers.

• State law allows a political subdivision to adopt an ordinance establishing its own method of disclosing potential conflicts of interest.  Adopting this ordinance limits the number of employees of the political subdivision that have to file a report with the MEC and allows them to file a short form report rather than a long form.  The law does not allow the MEC to charge a penalty for non-filers or late filers of the short form report.

• State law allows the MEC to request a political subdivision to submit a listing of persons designated as decision-making public servants, who are required by law to file a personal financial disclosure report.  We noted 11 political subdivisions in 2004 that did not comply with the MEC's request for a listing and there is no penalty provisions for non-compliant political subdivisions. 

The MEC is required by law to maintain files of lobbyist reports, campaign finance disclosure reports, and personal financial disclosure reports for public inspection, as well as review and audit them for timeliness, accuracy, and completeness.  It appears the MEC is adequately reviewing reports for timeliness and ensuring these reports are filled out properly and signed.  In addition, the MEC performs crosschecks  on some campaign finance reports.  The MEC considers these actions to be "audits" of the reports; however there is no independent audit or verification of the data in the reports.

The statutory deadline was not met for deciding election complaints for 21 out of 28 complaints filed before the April 4, 2006 election because the MEC did not have a quorum of four commissioners.  A quorum was not possible as three of the six commissioner’s terms expired on March 15, 2006, and new commissioners were not appointed in time to meet the statutory requirement of 15 days.  Although appointments have since been made and approved, they were not done in a timely manner.  Due to similar circumstances, 6 out of 15 and 12 out of 13 complaint decisions were untimely in 2004 and 2002, respectively.

The MEC does not publish written opinions annually as required by state law.  The MEC currently lists opinions on their website with a brief description.  The MEC management indicated they have plans to make their opinions available on the MEC’s website, but there is currently no timeframe for this project.

Also included in the report are recommendations related to expenditures, information system policies and procedures, and performance appraisals.

Many of the findings in this audit were also included in our prior audit report #2002-37.

Complete Audit Report