By Emily Younker

eyounker@joplinglobe.com

A state audit of McDonald County has found weaknesses in governmental-department procedures across the county.

Problems in accounting procedures were common. In Prosecuting Attorney Janice Durbin’s office, receipt slips were not always issued or recorded in the electronic system, which poses the potential for improper money handling, according to the audit.

Accounting responsibilities were also not properly segregated. The former office manager took care of receiving, recording, depositing and disbursing money as well as reconciling bank accounts, according to the audit.

Durbin said she wasn’t surprised by the audit’s findings. In a written response to the audit, she said her office’s budget has been cut $152,000 since Jan. 1, 2007, which has resulted in staffing cuts. That makes dividing accounting duties a greater challenge, she said by phone Wednesday.

“(But) we’ve had personnel changes since then that’s led to vast improvement in terms of some of the receipting and things like that,” she said. “Part of the problem at the time (of the audit) was we were in the process of changing from one system to another. We changed accounting programs, which actually helped us because it improved our ability to track things.”

She said she and her staff are working to address the concerns listed in the audit.

Clerk, treasurer

The audit also suggested weaknesses in the accounting system between County Clerk Barbara Williams and Treasurer Joye Helm. According to the audit, the two didn’t adequately reconcile their records, which led to an unidentified balance of more than $13,000 at the end of 2007. The audit also found that money transfers between county funds didn’t always balance.

Helm said Wednesday she is unaware of any accounting issues.

“We do reconcile our accounting records,” she said. “We reconcile every month at the end of the month.”

Williams said Wednesday she thinks the problem is more of a procedural matter than a question of whether reconciliation occurs.

“We reconcile our records; we could not run the budget without it,” she said. “We certainly will implement any procedure they recommend.”

Williams said she was unable to comment further because she hadn’t seen the complete audit.

County Commission

The audit also faulted the McDonald County Commission, which it charged sometimes conducted business without a quorum of commissioners present. For example, according to the audit, radio equipment costing more than $24,000 was approved in October 2007 when only one person of the three-member commission was present.

The commission sometimes failed to solicit or advertise for bids when choosing professional services, the audit found, nor did it obtain an independent appraisal of real estate purchased in February 2007.

Calls to the commission’s office went unanswered Wednesday. In a written response, the commission said it will better document the results of competitive bidding processes and will strive for appraisals for future property purchases.

Sheriff’s department

The audit found several weaknesses in the sheriff’s office.

It cited concerns about a bank account for the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, which was maintained by a sheriff’s deputy. Receipt and disbursement slips for the $11,000 that was processed through the account were not kept, according to the audit, and the checkbook register balance was inaccurate.

Additionally, the sheriff’s office doesn’t have the authority to hold accounts outside the county treasury.

Sheriff Robert Evenson, who took office in January, was unavailable for comment Wednesday. In a written response, he said he plans to form a separate not-for-profit organization to account for the DARE program, though the audit noted that seemed unnecessary.

Evenson wrote that he is working to improve those controls and procedures.

911 board

The Emergency 911 Board was also closely scrutinized. The audit found that the board ignored legal counsel to enter into a lease-purchase agreement and in 2008 obtained loans of $500,000 and $1 million to buy equipment and build offices.

The audit also found that the board lacked a formal code of conduct and that several members made transactions and decisions that represented conflicts of interest. The board in many cases did not solicit bids or proposals for professional services or equipment, according to the audit.

In its written response, the board said it sought the loans after the original lender backed out of the lease-purchase agreement. It also said it will adopt a code of ethics and will better publicize proposal and bid solicitations.

Mike Hall, chairman of the board since January, said several new policies and procedures are in place to address the concerns listed in the audit.





Scope of audit

The state audit of McDonald County’s government operations focused primarily on calendar years 2006 and 2007, but was not limited to those years, according to documents online at http://auditor.mo.gov/press/2009-108.htm.