Auditor Fitzpatrick releases report documenting improper payments made by the Lewis County Clerk

A new audit report released today by Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick documents nearly $6,000 in improper payments made by the Lewis County Clerk to herself and other county employees. The audit, which was requested by the Lewis County Commission, gives the office a rating of "fair" and also finds the clerk maintained election services money in an account held outside of the county treasury and did not properly budget these funds.

"I want to thank the members of the Commission for requesting this audit, which has confirmed their suspicions that election funds were not being used properly. While the conduct of the County Clerk does not appear to be malicious, it does represent a breach of the public's trust and something the County Clerk's Office needs to rectify immediately to prevent the misuse of funds in the future," said Auditor Fitzpatrick. "The good news is our audit report gives the county a plan to improve the controls and procedures over election services money, and the Clerk is already working to put our recommendations into place."

The audit report details how current Lewis County Clerk Shannon Sapp improperly paid herself $950 to provide absentee voting service even though she is not entitled to receive additional compensation for any election-related work performed. Additionally, Sapp improperly paid the Deputy Election Authority Clerk an additional $4,842. She also overpaid the Voter Registration Clerk by $82 due to a calculation error of her pay for additional election work. Sapp indicated she believed authorizing the additional pay was allowed and within her duties as the County Clerk and election authority. However, state law only allows the county clerk to employ election staff and fix compensation recorded on the election pay rates schedule. The audit also found Sapp did not process most of the compensation paid with election services money during the audit period through the normal county payroll system. The amount not properly processed totaled $6,269. Because she did not process the additional compensation through the normal county payroll system, the payments were not reported on the employee's W-2 forms, appropriate payroll taxes were not withheld, and the employer's share of payroll taxes was not paid.

The other finding in the audit report notes the County Clerk maintained election services money in the Election Authority Account outside of the county treasury and did not budget these funds. The County Clerk did not provide details to the County Commission to allow it to effectively estimate revenues and disbursements or monitor the budget. Additionally, County Clerk Sapp approved expense reimbursements without sufficient documentation. She also failed to segregate accounting duties and did not perform an adequate documented supervisory review of election services accounting and bank records.

The complete audit report is available here.