MISSOURI IS LOSING CONTROL OF FINANCIAL DATA

Anyone who wants to find out how state agencies in Jefferson City are spending your money will quickly discover how difficult it is to get this information. Except for broad numbers -- this many billions in the state budget, or this many millions appropriated for a specific agency -- you won't likely get what you're looking for.

Time and again the Southeast Missourian has sought to get financial information on key components of state government.

Invariably, bean counters in Jefferson City are not able to put their hands on that information without days or weeks of research. Nor do you get much agreement on the numbers if you ask more than one state official for information.

Addressing these deficiencies in financial accountability was one of the reasons the state began looking, several years ago, at a major upgrade in the computer system used by various agencies. Since then, more than $43 million has been spent on what the state calls SAM II, which was supposed to be state-of-the-art technology to track state programs and their costs.

But the new system isn't delivering on those expectations. State Auditor Claire McCaskill finds that more than two-thirds of the computer system's users are dissatisfied, and reports generated by the computers are inaccurate.

After spending that much money, it would be reasonable to expect an improvement in financial accountability. But the problem doesn't appear to be the fault of the computers so much as it is the people who operate them.

State workers complain it takes more time to make accurate and timely data entries, so this information is either bypassed or incomplete information is put into the state's database. As a result, officials who generate reports based on the computer's numbers come up with an inaccurate picture of such critical areas as fund balances, cash flow and depreciation.

Any private business encountering these kinds of problems would have a fairly simple solution: junk the computer system, if it's the culprit, or fire the workers who fail to do their data-entry jobs properly.

It is incredible to think that Missourians have paid for more than $40 million of computer upgrades and are getting less reliable information than before. It is this kind of government management that leaves taxpayers scratching their heads over failed highway plans and the "surprise" $300 million shortfall in the current state budget.