Report No. 2009-62
June 2009
Complete Audit Report

The following findings were included in our audit report on the City of St. Louis, Office of Collector of Revenue.

The Collector of Revenue's office does not competitively procure banking services on a periodic basis and has not executed written depositary agreements. The Collector of Revenue's office does not monitor daily the collateral securities pledged by the banks. Additionally, no collateral securities were pledged for three of the temporary accounts and, as a result, property tax collections totaling about $1.4 million were not secured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or collateral securities at December 31, 2007.

Office staff indicated they attempt to notify taxpayers of overpayments and outstanding refund checks by letters and telephone contacts; however, documentation of this activity is not retained. As of July 2008, the Duplicate Payment Account contained about 600 taxpayer accounts with unclaimed duplicate payments from 1 to 2 years old totaling approximately $470,000 and the Escrow Account contained about 500 outstanding checks from 1 to 7 years old totaling approximately $151,000. In addition, the procedures for reconciling bank statements and signing checks are not properly segregated.

The Collector of Revenue does not have a formal written procurement policy and has contracted some services without soliciting competitive bids/proposals. In addition, the Collector of Revenue's office indicated bids or price quotes were received for printing and stationary and automobiles, but the documentation was not retained. The Collector of Revenue's expenditure allocation percentages are not periodically evaluated for reasonableness and documentation supporting the development of the percentages is not maintained.

Procedures to verify deposits of water bill collections and motor vehicle and drivers license fees are not documented. The duties of processing earnings tax returns and payments and closing taxpayer accounts are not segregated. Taxpayer accounts on the earnings tax system are closed without supervisory review and approval, and the reasons for closing accounts are not always clearly indicated on the system.

The Collector of Revenue does not have written policies addressing the assignment of vehicles to individuals, personal use, or commuting. Vehicle mileage logs are not maintained for the vehicles assigned to the Chief of Staff and Collector of Revenue, and the logs for the compliance vehicles indicate only the daily beginning and ending odometer readings. The destination and trip purpose are not recorded on the logs.

Complete Audit Report
Missouri State Auditor's Office
moaudit@auditor.mo.gov