04/25/2016
Missouri State Auditor Nicole Galloway today released the results of an audit of Dunklin County, located in Southeast Missouri. The audit describes numerous issues with accounting records maintained by the sheriff's office, including concerns with record keeping in the commissary, where inmates can purchase snacks and other personal items. There were more than 500 active commissary accounts for individuals who were listed as current inmates, even though the jail can only house 174 inmates at a time. Proceeds from commissary sales were not deposited into the Inmate Prisoner Detainee Security Fund, as required by law, and auditors identified $14,000 that was inappropriately held, instead of being refunded to the inmates upon their release.
"Keeping accurate, complete records is the first step to preventing fraud or misuse of taxpayer dollars," Auditor Galloway said. "My team has made recommendations to help the sheriff develop procedures to better track inmate records and funds. All of the county's citizens benefit when we eliminate opportunities for waste or mismanagement."
Auditors also found the county collector-treasurer had not prepared annual settlements for property taxes since taking office in 2009, even though the issue had been identified in prior audits. The county collector-treasurer is supposed to prepare the settlement for review by the county clerk or county commission, but the county clerk prepared a number of settlements when the collector-treasurer failed to do so. Because the clerk prepared the settlements, the regular review process did not occur as intended, resulting in one settlement incorrectly reporting that $58,000 more had been spent than collected. The county commission also failed to review the settlement, so the error was not discovered prior to the audit.
The State Auditor's Office released a separate audit of the former Dunklin County public administrator, Shawnee Trowbridge, last month. During the course of the county audit, auditors discovered a series of questionable transactions made by Trowbridge. The audit found she misspent funds entrusted to her by individuals unable to manage their own finances. Trowbridge entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the attorney general's office that required her to resign from her position and make payments totaling $800 into the affected accounts.
Dunklin County received an overall performance rating of "fair." The complete report can be found online here.