Susan Montee's audit of St. Peters should be investigated

The St. Peters audit is in and if you listen to what Montee had to say, rather than what she wrote, you might think St. Peters is the standard by which other cities should be measured. If that is the case we should all throw in the towel. Of course, based on Montee's comments, St. Peters issued a press release which claims nothing wrong was found in the audit. To make matters worse the media picked up on this theme and reported Montee found St. Peters was clean.

First, I suggest everyone read the report and come to their own conclusions, since what has been reported as the facts are not true. Then I suggest you take a look at the Government Auditing Standards (GAS) to which Montee was required to conduct the audit. I do not profess to be an expert in regard to government auditing but Montee's poor audit is as evident based on common sense as it is from reading the standards. I will be posting more details about the audit in another post but let me give you one example of what Montee believes is a clean city:

St. Peters is involved in a project known as Lakeside 370. The city began purchasing land for the project in 2000 and has purchased 1552 acres for a total of 9.1 million. Montee reports that the city did not obtain an appraisal on some of the land purchased, most notably 98 acres which was purchased from former mayor Tom Brown's son-in-law. (Montee did not mention the name of her fellow Democrat Brown but instead said one sale "involved a related party to the mayor in office at the time.") Therefore, the average price per acre for the land obtained from those not related to Brown was $5,227.00 while Brown's son-in-law received $15,306.00 per acre.

Montee offers no explanation for the large difference in price per acre and, for the most part, ignores this clear conflict of interest. The GAS provide as an example of abuse the following:

• c. Misusing the official's position for personal gain (including actions that could be perceived by an objective third party with knowledge of the relevant information as improperly benefiting an official's personal financial interests or those of an immediate or close family member...)

The Brown land deal is a perfect example of "abuse" under GAS but to avoid making such a finding Montee simply ignores this part of her job. In the report Montee states "because the determination of abuse is subjective, our audit is not required to provide reasonable assurance of detecting abuse." Huh? I think this means Montee won't tell on her fellow Democrat Tom Brown.