YELLOW SHEET Office of the State Auditor of Missouri Claire McCaskill

September 28, 1999
Report No. 99-84

IMPORTANT: The Missouri State Auditor is required by Missouri law to conduct audits only once every four years in counties, like Webster, 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 Webster County was a financial and compliance audit of various county operating funds.

The county did not sufficiently rollback its property tax levy to comply with the sales tax ballot issue passed by Webster County voters. For the 1998 rollback, a calculation error caused the county to collect $22,829 in excess property taxes, and higher than projected sales tax revenues caused an additional $27,533 in excess property taxes. The County Commission indicated the 1999 property tax levy has been rolled back sufficiently to correct these errors.

The audit also includes some matters upon which the county should consider and take appropriate corrective action.

Complete Audit Report