YELLOW SHEET
Office of the State Auditor of Missouri
Claire McCaskill
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YELLOW SHEET Office of the State Auditor of Missouri |
July 29, 1999
Report No. 99-47
The following problems were discovered during the annual audit conducted of the Missouri State Treasurer's Office.
The State Treasurer's Office maintains numerous bank accounts to handle state monies. Due to the volume of activity, and the number and complexity of reconciling items, many of the main operating accounts are normally reconciled daily. However, one of these accounts, the Electronic Receipt Account, was not being reconciled on a timely basis. During our audit, we noted that the daily bank reconciliations for this account ranged from five to nine months behind. To allow errors and other reconciling items to be identified, researched, and corrected in a timely manner, bank reconciliations should be kept up-to-date.
The State Treasurer's Office did not properly transfer the excess fund balance from the Abandoned Fund Account Fund to the General Revenue Fund as required by state law. The Abandoned Fund Account Fund was established by state law to accept deposits of all abandoned property turned over to the state and to pay claims and expenses related to that abandoned property.
Audits and other reviews of deposits and loans related to several components of the Missouri First Linked Deposit Program were not being performed on a timely basis or in accordance with written procedures. Reviews of the amount of outstanding loans of Agriculture and Small Business program participants for deposits maturing in 1997 had not been performed as of December 1998. The State Treasurer's Office's written procedures for the Job Creation component require that, annually, 10 to 20 percent of maturing program deposits be selected for audit. However, for the last two years, deposits were only selected for audit if the borrower self-reported that they did not create or retain the required number of jobs, or if the number of jobs reported by the borrower exceeded the number of jobs indicated on Division of Employment Security records.
Regarding all findings, the State Treasurer's Office has generally agreed with the recommendations of the State Auditor, and has committed to making improvements in areas where concerns were noted.