State audit report about sales taxes worries Bollinger County officials

Bollinger County annually collects hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales taxes that appear to exceed legal limits, according to a Missouri state auditor's office report issued in December.

In the report, a review of county finances that repeats and expands on findings from a 2004 audit, the auditor's office noted that county voters have approved three sales taxes totaling 1.125 percent. While an attorney general's opinion from 1989 said counties are allowed to ask for taxes multiple times under Missouri Revised Statutes Chapter 67, it stated the total amount of the tax must be no more than one-half percent.

"The county needs to review the various sales tax levies to determine which are valid," the audit report states.

The taxes, which raised a combined $670,000 in 2007, are a half-cent sales tax approved by voters in 1989, an eighth-cent sales tax approved by voters in 2006 for senior citizen services and a half-cent tax approved in 2003 and renewed in 2007.

Bollinger County also levies a half-cent sales tax authorized by a different section of state law.

Presiding Commissioner Wayne Johnson, who has been in office since 2003, said it appeared that at least one half-cent sales tax was put on a ballot using the wrong state statute.

He said he would ask the county's prosecuting attorney, Steve Gray, to help find a legal solution to the problem.

Johnson said he looks at the state statutes but is not familiar with all those relating to county government.

"I'm a farmer, not a lawyer," he said.

Bollinger County's annual budget is $2.2 million, including road and bridge work. The county is mostly rural, with about 13,000 residents. County officials are paid at 82 percent of the rate allowed by state law. A half-cent retail sales tax that generates $6 million in Cape Girardeau County barely delivers $300,000 in Bollinger County.

Johnson said the county will continue to collect the taxes as they stand until it finds an alternative. The state auditor cannot force the county to stop collecting the taxes.

"We don't have the authority to make any changes; we are just pointing it out," said Allison Bruns, spokeswoman for the Missouri state auditor's office. She said while it's not typical for the books of third-class counties to reflect multiple taxes, it is not unheard of, either. She said counties are responsible for making the changes. She was not sure if the attorney general's office would take any action.

Bollinger County Clerk Diane Holzum said the county has not heard from the attorney general's office.

Holzum, who has been the clerk for 23 years and experienced many state audits, said the county did not intentionally break the law.

"It's important. You want to do what's right. I think most of the people in the county know that," she said. "The people voted on it. Even though it's not under the right statutes, they voted for it anyway because they know our property tax doesn't even bring in what the sales tax does."

Holzum said she did not think it would be fair if a retailer sued the county to return the money already collected, though she said she did not expect any lawsuits.

"How would they know who to give it back to? It's not their money. It belongs to the people," she said.

Both Johnson and Holzum said they welcomed the state audits because the county is not charged for the work and the results typically make the county more efficient. Among this year's recommendations, which have already begun to be implemented, Holzum said, are better records for county vehicles and a centralized system for county timecards. The county also is in the process of electronically linking the clerk, collector and treasurer's office records.

She said the Missouri Department of Revenue never notified Bollinger County that the sales tax was a problem.

A spokesman for the Missouri Department of Revenue said that agency is charged only to make sure taxes approved by voters are collected and that refunds are issued in a timely manner, a process more mechanical than regulatory.

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

388-3632

rkeller@semissourian.com

388-3642

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