Report No. 2009-90
September 2009
Complete Audit Report
The following report is our audit of the General Assembly and Supporting Functions - Senate.
Donations are solicited from lobbyists by senators or Senate officials and used to pay various costs, including Christmas parties and gift cards for Senate staff, retirement receptions and gifts for outgoing senators, and food and beverage costs of senators and Senate staff when working late during legislative sessions. These donations have been deposited into a separate bank account maintained outside the state treasury, although it is not clear there is authority to do so. Since the establishment of the account in December 2003, donations totaling $76,070 have been deposited into this account, with $60,945 being disbursed from this account. Donations have been received from over 100 different lobbyists or lobbyist principals. Some of these donations (9 of 15 tested) were not properly reported by the lobbyists to the Missouri Ethics Commission, as required by law. Also, some control weaknesses were noted over the receipt and handling of these monies.
Actively soliciting donations from lobbyists could give the appearance of, and may result in, a conflict of interest. In addition, constitutional and statutory provisions indicate that state funds are to be held and disbursed by the state treasurer. To promote compliance with laws related to lobbyist activities, the Senate should notify lobbyists of the reporting requirement when soliciting and receiving donations, and the need to amend expenditure reports filed with the Ethic Commission for any donations not previously reported.
Support staff employees are not required to sign their timesheets to document the hours worked and any leave taken. In addition, the employees' supervisors do not routinely review and approve the timesheets of their subordinates or related data in the time management system. For senators' personal staff, detailed timesheets and records of compensatory time earned and accumulated are not always prepared or centrally maintained. The Senate does not require the time management system used for support staff to be used by senators' personal staff and senators are allowed to decide how the time worked by their personal staff is to be documented.
The Senate accounts for its capital assets using two separate systems, an internal computerized system with bar coding capabilities and the fixed asset subsystem of the state's accounting system. The Senate does not periodically reconcile the information on these two capital asset systems. In addition, property control duties are not adequately segregated, with the employee who maintains the records also performing the physical inventories.
The Senate did not always comply with bidding and documentation requirements of its procurement policy. Instances were noted in which competitive bids or proposals were either not obtained or the procurement methods and circumstances were not properly documented. Instances noted included a digital recording system costing $9,775, computers and related equipment costing $21,707, and legal services costing $13,202. In addition, gifts were provided to outgoing senators which were paid from the state's General Revenue Fund. In June 2006, the Senate paid $2,240 for eight framed and engraved silver trays which were provided as gifts to the senators leaving office in 2006. Similarly, in early fiscal 2009, $1,947 was spent on seven framed silver trays given to outgoing senators in 2008. These gifts do not appear to be a necessary or prudent use of state funds.
The Senate does not have a formal disaster recovery plan for its computer system/data and does not store copies of backup data at an off-site location.
Complete Audit Report
Missouri State Auditor's Office
moaudit@auditor.mo.gov
