The Statewide Single Audit examines state expenditures of federal money. For fiscal year 2011, our state spent approximately $14.23 billion in federal funds, including $1.79 billion in stimulus funds. Unfortunately, we uncovered significant problems with waste and mismanagement of these funds.

The most troubling of these problems is the misuse of over $650,000 by the Human Development Corporation of Metropolitan St. Louis, a Department of Social Services sub-contractor that received $4.23 million from the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance program to help low-income families have access to energy. The company failed due to financial problems, requiring the use of additional state funds to pay for the energy for these families.

In addition, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education continues to refuse to actively monitor disbursement of federal stimulus funds, instead waiting until a full year after the funds are disbursed to undertake any monitoring operations. This has the potential to lead to misuse and waste, because nobody is watching the money as it is being spent, and it is particularly frustrating because last year’s audit warned DESE of the problem and urged them to adopt more responsible standards for monitoring the funds.

They Syncare troubles also continue to have an impact on our state. An audit of the Department of Health and Senior Services – Division of Senior and Disability Services revealed that of the 60 recipients chosen as part of our testing sample, 78% of them had not been subjected to the required annual reassessments (which were to be taken care of by Syncare before the company imploded and the responsibility was passed on to temporary DSDS staff), and records for one person were missing entirely.

In addition, we uncovered a major accounting problem impacting $184 million in funds recorded by the Office of Administration’s Division of Accounting. After the federal government required the Division to change some procedures, the Division started recording transactions twice in the state’s systems, resulting in overstatement of both revenues and expenditures. The Division is working on fixing the problem, and I am confident that this problem will be fixed soon.

There were also several problems with the Department of Social Services – Family Services Division’s documentation and procedures for the TANF program. In all, 7 of the 60 records we checked had problems, whether it was a lack of updated information or improper documentation. In addition, the agency claimed more than $44 million in unallowable costs toward maintenance of effort requirements, which was also a problem for the agency in the last Statewide Single Audit.

These are only a few of the 26 findings and 42 recommendations outlined in the audit report, which can be viewed here.

There were some bright spots, though. There were no adverse findings at three departments included in the audit – the Department of Mental Health, Department of Natural Resources, and Department of Transportation. These three departments have done an exemplary job accounting for their use of federal funds and maintaining proper oversight over disbursement, and I commend them for serving as a good example for the rest of our government to follow.

It is always a refreshing site to see conservative Republicans gathering to promote the change our country needs.
At State Lincoln Days, it was great to listen to Gov. Bobby Jindal and Gov. Bob McDonnell speak about the importance of conservative Republican leadership for our state and our nation.

With your help and hard work, we can work to take back our government and elect conservative leaders.

To view the complete audit report, Citizens Summary and audit rating scale, visit: http://auditor.mo.gov/view.aspx?id=201216