June 27, 2023 Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.

I attended the June 27, 2023 Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.

All commissioners were present.

The first agenda item was Bollinger Creek Update.

Readers will recall Bollinger Creek was the creek that was eroding an adjacent cemetery and washing the graves into the lake.

Commissioner Williams explained that they have been waiting on a permit from the Corps of Engineers to begin repairs. The permit had to be approved at a higher command level because of the size of the project. It was recently approved and the Camden County Road and Bridge Administrator is reviewing the plans. Work on the the project should begin next week.

The second agenda item was Public Administration Budget Amendment.

The official budget amendment was not ready for the commissioners to sign. The Public Administrator told the commissioners that the purpose of the amendment was to move $7,471 internally to pay for a vehicle, travel expenses, and miscellaneous expenses. The Commission seemed to be inclined to approve the amendment, but County Treasurer Kendra Hicks advised them not to approve it until they could review the actual budget amendment itself.

The third agenda item was N Hwy 5 / Old 5 Surplus Property Decision.

Presiding Commissioner Skelton said they had received no bids for auction services for the property. The commissioners then reached out to various local auction companies and Bryant Auction agreed to auction it.

A member of the audience asked if there would be a minimum bid on the property? There was a discussion among the commissioners about establishing a reserve price for the auctions of both the parking lot and the county-owned lots on Horseshoe Bend. They reached a consensus that this was something they could discuss with the auctioneer.

A motion to have Bryant Auction auction off both properties was approved unanimously.

The fourth agenda item was Decision for Auditing Services.

Commissioner Skelton stated that the county sent out a request for bids and received no bids. He said that County Auditor Laughlin told him that all of the auditing companies are too busy. Evers and Company didn’t want to audit the county. Camden County is simply unable to find anyone to conduct their annual audit.

So sad. Everybody seemed to want be friends with Camden County when they had all of that ARPA money.

The fifth agenda item was Health Dept.- New Sign.

The Health Department Administrator explained that this was a purchase request for a digital sign in front of the Health Department building. The sign will cost $40,000! An Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity (ELC) Grant from the CDC will pay for 100% of the sign’s costs.

The purchase of a new sign for the Health Department was approved unanimously.

The sixth agenda item was LOZ Stop Human Trafficking Coalition (LOSHTC) – Request to use front lawn.

This one is pretty self explanatory. The LOZ Stop Human Trafficking group wants to use the courthouse front lawn for the A21 Walk for Freedom on October 14 from 9:00 a.m. until noon.

There was no vote needed on this, but the Commission granted them the front lawn use.

The final agenda item was Tunnel Dam MOA.

This item was regarding a Memorandum of Understanding between Sho-Me Power and Camden County for the Tunnel Dam. FERC required that if the dam was to remain in place, a local government entity had to be associated with Sho-Me Power’s efforts to observe and maintain the condition of the dam.

I wrote about this issue previously.

Commissioner Skelton stated that Missouri environmental agencies have made it clear that they would prefer the removal of the dam.

The Commissioners voiced their unanimous approval to receive the Memorandum of Understanding from Sho-Me Power for the continued retention and maintenance of the Tunnel Dam.

And that was that.

The problem that Camden County has been experiencing with hiring an auditing company has highlighted an issue with the way Camden County has been conducting audits.

RsMO 55.160 states that for 1^st Class Counties that do not have charters (like Camden County), the county auditor SHALL audit the accounts of all officers of the county annually or upon their retirement from office. Most counties appear to get around this statutory requirement by hiring the same auditing company every year to conduct an annual, external audit.

The counties provide the auditing company with all of the numbers and the company pumps out an audit saying that everything looks great. Audits tend to look great when the person being audited is the only one who is giving the auditor all of the information.

According to Presiding Commissioner Skelton, Daniel Jones still has not completed the 2021 audit of Camden County. That would lead one to believe that the 2022 audit isn’t off to a great start either. Perhaps it’s finally time to start following the letter of the law when it comes to county audits. Imagine, if you will, a world where a County Auditor audits.