Missouri's legal-expense fund failed to track $67M in payouts the past five years, auditor finds
The state of Missouri has no system in place to track how tens of millions of dollars are spent from its legal expense fund to pay for settlements and judgments in lawsuits filed against state agencies, a review by Missouri Auditor Nicole Galloway has found.
Galloway's audit, released today, analyzes total expenditures from the legal expense fund, by all state departments, during fiscal years 2012 through 2016, and fiscal year 2017 through February. During that period, according to the audit, the state drew on the fund when paying out some $67 million toward settlements and judgments. Forty-one cases cost taxpayers $250,000 or more each, according to the audit, and totaled $51 million — 68 percent of expenditures.
The state legislature set up the legal expense fund years ago to ensure that the state had enough money to cover lawsuit settlements. State law requires the Missouri attorney general to handle the litigation and to sign the checks to pay the legal expenses. The state Office of Administration oversees the fund and its budget.
Galloway launched the audit last December, after The Pitch reported that the state was spending millions of dollars on lawsuits filed against the Missouri Department of Corrections to settle extreme cases of employee discrimination, abuse and retaliation by supervisors and co-workers. The Pitch reported at the time that the amount the state had paid corrections employees had exploded in the last four years.
Read more: http://www.pitch.com/news/article/20975887/missouris-legalexpense-fund-failed-to-track-67-million-in-payouts-the-past-five-years-auditor-finds