An internal city audit released Tuesday found widespread financial mismanagement in the St. Louis sheriff's office.
The 10-page report analyzed the office’s financial practices from July 2024 to June 2025 — including the administrations of both former Sheriff Vernon Betts and the currently jailed Sheriff Alfred Montgomery, who took office in January.
The city’s financial watchdogs raised alarms on a slew of financial red flags in the office, including a $812,666 deficit, a bounced check for a $56,000 take-home car and payroll discrepancies for employees who didn't log hours.
Auditors stated the office had a “critical weakness” in how it handled finances and categorized the office’s finances as “high risk” if corrective actions weren’t taken immediately — not in 2026, as suggested by the sheriff’s office.
Montgomery’s administration previously asked state Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick for an audit of the office when he was elected but ultimately declined due to the price associated with such a review. The city subsequently picked up the duty.
The sheriff’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
In all, the city’s auditors found critical issues in four areas:
1. Inadequate controls over expenditures
- The sheriff’s office has exceeded its budget by nearly $813,000 — about 15% of the office’s roughly $14.5 million annual budget.
- A large portion of the overage came from Montgomery’s mass dismissal of employees who worked under Betts.
- The sheriff came under fire last June when it was revealed personnel terminations and separations had cost the office more than $600,000. According to the audit, terminations cost the office more than $491,000 — about half of it from paid leave payouts.
- Other expenses appeared to be concerning to the auditors: $28,000 for uniforms and badges that didn’t get purchased under a competitive bidding process, roughly $56,000 on a new take-home vehicle, and $11,700 on golf carts.
Although the department is not a part of the city, the comptroller recommends the department follow the city charter and the city’s ordinances to ensure money it provides is handled efficiently.
2. Inadequate accounting controls and procedures
- The sheriff’s office was found to have kept its financial budgets in a Microsoft Excel file titled “2025 Year End Budget,” instead of a dedicated accounting system.
- Internal accountants did not conduct monthly reviews of approved expenditures against the department’s bank accounts.
- There were no systems in place to ensure that funds are available for purchases. For example, Montgomery’s administration bounced a check, incurring an additional fee while attempting to purchase a new Chevrolet Tahoe because there wasn’t enough money in the department’s bank account.
- “There is no effective accounting system in place for the recording of revenue and expenditures,” the auditors wrote.
The comptroller recommends the sheriff’s office use the city’s financial reporting software and create preventative controls to catch errors, irregularities, losses and omissions.
3. Lack of payroll management
- After randomly selecting employees, the audit found no timesheet reporting in February, April and May of this year though workers still received pay slips and gross income was reported on its payroll report.
- Time sheets often had employees’ incorrect job descriptions, for example the “Director of Personnel & Fiscal Operations Manager” was listed as a “Senior Deputy.”
- Only about half of the workers were getting approval for the hours they worked.
An employee should be assigned to review payroll and timesheets each week, the comptroller’s office wrote. Internal audits should also be conducted on a regular basis to catch fiscal errors.
4. Lack of segregation of duties in cash handling
- One person should not be in charge of the entirety of the department’s finances, the audit stated.
- A lack of financial segregation and multiple people working on finances can lead to inaccuracies.
The comptroller’s office said qualified staff should be directed to handle financial records to prevent one person from being in charge of everything. Personnel duties should also be separated from financial duties.
The finances in the sheriff’s office have landed Montgomery in hot water. The Missouri attorney general is attempting to use the office’s so-called misuse of public resources and financial mismanagement to oust him from office through a rarely used quo warranto removal petition.
