Missouri State Auditor Nicole Galloway has accepted the St. Louis Board of Aldermen’s request to complete an audit of the city, she said today (January 31) at a press conference.
Earlier this month, the Board of Aldermen passed a resolution requesting a state audit of city offices and departments. Prior to that, Audit STL, a grassroots citizen effort, had been gathering signatures to petition for a comprehensive city audit.
“Something that I want people to understand is although the Board of Alderman has requested the audit, we are still going to gather input from residents and taxpayers,” Galloway told the St. Louis American.
She will take input from the aldermen as well, she said, but now that her office has accepted the request, the process is in her hands.
“We are tough,” she said. “We are thorough, and we are independent. We will take in a lot of information and will listen to people’s concerns, but ultimately it’s my job to hold government accountable to taxpayers.”
The last time the state completed an audit of St. Louis city was in 2010 and it consisted of 26 reports, which were released as they were completed. It took two years to complete the entire audit, and Galloway said this is a good guideline for how long the process will take. The last review took somewhere around 32,000 hours to do, she added.
The cost is expected to be between $1.2 and $1.75 million.
Galloway’s team will first determine what recommendations have been implemented since the 2010 audit, but she is unsure how long that review will take, she said. She expects that they will start requesting documents in May or June.
She will be hosting a series of meetings over the next several months to engage residents. However, if citizens have immediate concerns, they don’t have to attend meetings, Galloway said. They can use the office’s whistleblower hotline and give their comments anonymously.
“We are really encouraging folks to contact my office,” Galloway said.
One of Audit STL’s main concerns has been the city’s spending on public safety. “We’ve sent her lots of questions about police overtime, police settlements and police pensions, in terms of how they are devouring the budget right now,” said Matt Schmidt of Audit STL.
Galloway told the American, “I’m aware that the petition drive by the citizens, that this was one of their focuses and certainly we will be looking at that.”
Audit STL believes the auditor is going about things “exactly the right way,” by having citizen meetings before they get started.
“Today, the auditor has made it very clear that it’s going to be a citizen-driven audit,” Schmidt said, “and that just because the Board of Aldermen requested it, it doesn’t mean that they get to decide what she does.”
He also encourages people to think about their interactions with city government – especially people who work for the city – and call the whistleblower hotline.
To submit information, residents can visit:
https://auditor.mo.gov/state-auditors-whistleblower-hotline
They can also call 1-800-347-8597 or email moaudit@auditor.mo.gov.
