Thursday, December 22, 2016

State audit of Missouri Lottery begins

(From State Auditor Nicole Galloway)

Missouri State Auditor Nicole Galloway has announced the start of a regularly scheduled audit of the Missouri Lottery Commission. The commission has received an overall performance rating of good for its most recent two audits, completed in 2012 and 2015. Both audits raised concerns with issues related to advertising and contract management.

In the past the Lottery has incurred expenses greater than the amount of benefits for some community events. Prior reports recommended the Lottery Commission conduct further analysis to determine the appropriate amount of advertising to optimize sales and profits. Lottery officials had indicated increases in the advertising budget would result in higher funding for education, however, the return on this investment was unknown or not analyzed by the lottery commission.

The State Auditor has previously found the Lottery Commission continues entered into long-term contracts and amended contracts instead of periodically soliciting competitive bids and proposals. As a result of the long-term contracts, the best providers might not have had an opportunity to bid on some services.

Individuals who would like to provide information for consideration during the audit of the Missouri Lottery Commission may contact the State Auditor's Whistleblower Hotline at 800-347-8597 or by email at moaudit@auditor.mo.gov.

2 comments:

Harvey Hutchinson said...

When there's a lot better of money floating around, it needs checking very periodically, and aggressively!

Too easy for the bureaucrats to line their own pockets!!

Anonymous said...

Amen