YELLOW SHEET Office of the State Auditor of Missouri Claire McCaskill

August 30, 1999
Report No. 99-64

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 perform 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 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:

The Public Administrator has frequently been late in filing annual settlements and is not adequately monitoring the bank account balances of wards. Numerous concerns existed with the methods of providing allowance payments to wards and documentation pertaining to many disbursements was not adequate or was not retained. The Associate Circuit Judge has removed the Public Administrator as guardian and conservator for one ward and requested additional information regarding some disbursements for other wards. Additionally, reimbursements to the Public Administrator himself were not supported by adequate documentation.

The county's overtime and compensatory time policies do not address current practices of the ambulance service, which are inconsistent with overtime determination methods utilized for other county employees. The county may be incurring more in overtime costs than is necessary.

Due to the erroneous handling of some property tax transactions by the Trenton Township Collector and the Ex Officio County Collector, the county apparently failed to collect approximately $4,303 in back taxes.

Also included in the audit are recommendations to improve the accounting controls and procedures for the Prosecuting Attorney, Assessor, Health Center Board, and the Families and Friends of the Developmentally Disabled Board. The audit also suggested improvements be made in the county's budgetary and financial reporting procedures, property tax system controls, and other payroll and salary commission procedures and documentation.

Complete Audit Report