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| Serving Callaway County communities since 1875. | www.fultonsun.com | Saturday, July 04, 2009 |
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Inexperience cause of Fulton municipal division's poor audit review By KATHERINE CUMMINS The Fulton Sun
Missouri State Auditor Susan Montee issued a report Friday citing the Fulton Municipal Division court clerk's work as inadequate. The audit summary states “the current Court Clerk does not reconcile the composition of the receipt slips to the composition of the bank deposits. Checks and money orders are not restrictively endorsed and bank reconciliations are not prepared for the municipal division's bank account. “In addition, the duties of receiving, recording, depositing, and disbursing monies collected by the court, as well as reconciling the municipal division's account, are not adequately segregated.” “Most of the findings are due to just lack of attention to detail and failure to have proper policies and procedures in place,” said Joe Martin, chief of staff for the state auditor's office. “Mostly it's making sure the information is reconciled properly and making sure there is proper segregation of duties. “They are violations we often see related to proper controls that need to be in place to help prevent any type of appropriation.” Fulton director of administration Bill Johnson said “95 percent of the issues are due to the fact the court clerk was new and the system was new,” noting the situation was made even more difficult as both changes were made “almost simultaneously.” Additional violations include closed case files not being available for review, court data not being backed up, and the municipal division and police department not adequately accounting for disposition of traffic and parking tickets, further citing Slaughter for parking fines not being deposited in a timely manner. In the auditee's response in the report, the associate circuit judge, assistant to the court administrator and the court clerk noted “The Court Clerk began her employment in March 2007 ... The previous court clerk ... terminated her employment in January 2007. The previous court clerk was not available to train the new court clerk.” At the same time, Fulton was the first municipality in the state to implement the electronic Judicial Information System for a municipal court. “It wasn't designed for a municipal system, it was designed for state laws, so significant time and effort went into design and modification to make it more municipal-friendly,” Johnson said. Despite the initial problems cited in the state auditor's report, he said he is “confident in saying the issues either have been or will be addressed. “The new court clerk I believe is doing a good job, but there's a learning curve,” Johnson said. “She's still learning her job, and everyone's still learning the capabilities of the new software.” Martin acknowledged that Fulton seems to have taken steps to correct the mistakes, but said the state still intends to check on the city's progress. “It looks for the most part like they have already implemented some things,” Martin said. “We'll follow up on them within six months to see if they've (fully) implemented all of our recommendations.” |
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