State Auditor Nicole Galloway today issued her audit of Dent County, located in southeast Missouri. The county received a rating of “good,” which is the same rating issued in a 2019 audit of the county.
During the course of the audit, auditors noted that the Sheriff’s fee bank account had $2,956 of unidentified money at the end of 2021. The Sheriff’s office collects fees for civil paper service, board bills, concealed carry weapon permits, and other miscellaneous receipts, which totaled approximately $198,000 in 2021. Sheriff’s office personnel indicated that the unidentified balance had been in the Sheriff’s fee bank account for a number of years. Based on a discussion with auditors, the Sheriff’s office disbursed the unidentified money to the County Treasurer.
The audit also recommends that county officials take steps to better safeguard county computer systems from unauthorized access or loss of data. Auditors noted that the computers in some offices don’t lock after several unsuccessful login attempts, some passwords are not changed periodically, and employees share login credentials in one office. Passwords changed periodically, that contain a minimum number of characters and are not shared, reduce the risk of a compromised password and unauthorized access to county data. Additionally, the audit notes that the Public Administrator does not store backup data at an off-site location. Failure to store computer backup data at a secure off-site location result in the backup data being susceptible to the same damage as the data on the computer.
The audit also recommends that the County Commission work with other county officials to develop a written records management and retention policy to address electronic communications management and retention to comply with state law.
A complete copy of the audit report is available here.
