Report No. 2008-87
December 2008
Complete Audit Report
An audit was conducted by our office of the Seventh Judicial Circuit, city of Pleasant Valley Municipal Division.
Neither the Court Administrator nor the police department account for the numerical sequence of traffic tickets issued. In addition, the bond safe is not permanently affixed to the wall or floor and can be easily carried from one location to another. Some tickets were voided by the Police Chief without maintaining an affidavit documenting the reason for this action and some tickets appear to have been voided by the Police Chief after being submitted to the court. Adjustments to bond amounts by police officers are not always approved by the Municipal Judge or Police Chief.
Deposits are not made timely and receipts totaling $747 received by the municipal division in May 2007 could not be traced to a deposit. The court does not maintain its own bank accounts, but instead transmits collections to city personnel for deposit. Receipts slips are not issued to court personnel when monies are transmitted, so it is unclear whether the missing monies were transmitted to the city for deposit. Non-monetary transactions are not adequately reviewed and there are no procedures in place to ensure all non-monetary transactions posted to the system were authorized by the Judge. Numerous concerns related to receipts of the municipal division were noted, including receipts slips not issued for some monies received, lack of a comparison of the composition of receipts to deposits, and issuing receipts slips for less than the amount actually received. Additionally, some employees that collect monies are not bonded and checks and money orders are not restrictively endorsed upon receipt. Bond open item listings are not reconciled to the bond bank account balances. The court maintains two bank accounts for bonds, which totaled $15,605 at March 31, 2008, while the balance of the open items listing only identified $8,843 in open bonds.
Complete Audit Report
Missouri State Auditor's Office
moaudit@auditor.mo.gov
