Auditor Fitzpatrick launches audit of St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Authority

Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick said today that his office will closely examine the decision making of the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Authority (RSA) as it spent more than $16 million in taxpayer money in its failed effort to keep the Rams football team in St. Louis, and then managed approximately $519 million the area received in a settlement after the Rams departed. The audit officially launched with an entrance meeting with RSA officials on Tuesday, May 21.

Even before his time in the State Auditor's Office, Fitzpatrick led efforts to scrutinize the decision and processes used by the RSA to spend $16.2 million to hire an architecture firm and various attorneys and consultants in an attempt to retain the St. Louis Rams. While he was chairman of the House Budget Committee, he called on former State Auditor Nicole Galloway to launch an audit. When she didn't act, Fitzpatrick helped secure funding for a study to conduct an independent review of the RSA's spending decisions. However, the review was never conducted because prior governors withheld funding for the study and the procurement efforts were unsuccessful.

Now, Fitzpatrick hopes to give taxpayers the answers they deserve as the audit conducted by his office will attempt to uncover additional details on the millions of tax dollars that were spent on consultants and legal services in the failed attempt to keep the Rams in St. Louis.

"The Sports Authority is a public entity using public dollars and it deserves to be held to the highest possible standard as we make sure the millions of dollars the RSA spent were used responsibly and in accordance with state law," said Fitzpatrick, who noted the RSA receives approximately $24 million annually in city, county, and state funding. "I have led efforts in the past to examine how these dollars were spent but we've only been able to obtain minimal details about the expenditures. My hope is that our audit will finally give taxpayers the full picture of the how and why of the RSA's decisions to spend more than $16 million in the failed bid to keep the Rams."

Fitzpatrick said the audit will also look at the distribution and use of the funds obtained from the settlement with the Rams. The RSA has managed approximately $519 million from that settlement and while the 11-member board of the RSA, along with St. Louis City and St. Louis County, tried to determine how to allocate the funds, they sat in non- and low-interest bearing accounts for more than 10 months. Fitzpatrick said the failure to invest the funds in investments with a higher return likely caused the region to lose out on millions of dollars in interest earnings. The audit team will take a closer look at this decision as well as others related to how the funds have been managed and allocated.