Report No. 2008-16
March 2008
Complete Audit Report
An audit was conducted by our office of the Twenty-first Judicial Circuit, city of Pagedale, Missouri Municipal Division.
The municipal court collects approximately $377,000 annually in fines and court costs. Court records were poorly maintained and at least $1,088 in court monies appear to have been misappropriated. Additional amounts may also be missing due to control weaknesses over municipal court receipts. Neither the city nor court personnel reconcile the method of payment received to the composition of the deposits to ensure receipts were deposited intact. The lack of this comparison allowed unrecorded money orders to be substituted into deposits, receipt slips to be issued for less than received, and cash receipts to be misappropriated.
The unrecorded money orders were posted to the court computer system (REJIS). However, reports on daily receipts posted to REJIS are not generated and as a result receipts per REJIS are not reconciled to the ledgers or monies deposited. A reconciliation of the receipt information posted to the computer system would have allowed the city to detect possible problems in the monies collected.
The method of payment is not always recorded on the receipt slips/ledger and in some instances both cash and money order were marked. Deposits are not made intact as some cash refunds are made for overpayments of fines and court costs paid by money order.
A monthly listing of bond open items is not prepared and reconciled with the bond account. At the end of each fiscal year, the city bookkeeper prepares a summary report of bond open items. The summary list for September 30, 2007, totaled $35,938 while the bond account bank balance was only $32,379, resulting in a $3,559 shortage. In addition, procedures have not been established to resolve old outstanding checks for the bond account, monies received are not always deposited on a timely basis, and procedures have not been established to adequately monitor accrued costs owed to the court. Also, the Municipal Court and Police Department do not account for the numerical sequence of tickets issued.
Complete Audit Report
Missouri State Auditor's Office
moaudit@auditor.mo.gov
