(Radio Iowa) – A broken water meter at the home of a clerk for the City of Missouri Valley has led to a special investigation by the state auditor’s office — and advice to quit storing cash in the city’s safe for weeks at a time. State Auditor Rob Sand says auditors reviewed a 50 month period and identified about 42-thousand dollars in utility payments from Missouri Valley residents that weren’t immediately deposited until about a thousand dollars in cash had accumulated in a safe.

“That isn’t what you want to do,” Sand says. “You want to get the money in and then you want to put it in the bank as quickly as possible.” Auditors determined the 42-thousand dollars was eventually deposited. “But you just don’t want to have that money laying around, even if it’s in a safe,” Sand says. “You want to be making deposits as soon as the money comes in.”

In October of 2019, Missouri Valley’s city administrator discovered the water meter at Brenda Osborn’s home was broken and she had adjusted her monthly bill from zero to about 50 dollars for 20 consecutive months. Osborn, the city’s water billing clerk, was in charge of getting meters fixed. Osborn was placed on leave and then resigned in late 2019. Sand says once the meter at Osborn’s home was fixed, her monthly bill wound up to be about 30 bucks.

The investigation by the state auditor’s office identified about 12-hundred dollars worth of checks written to the city apparently converted to cash. However, auditors weren’t able to match any of the amounts written on the checks to bills that were due. “We’ve got a little bit of missing money here and that’s always important,” Sand says, “but the other issue is how to people get the opportunity for that money to go missing and that is not following best practices.”

Sand says that means accurate daily recording of receipts and prompt deposits of any money paid to the city. Missouri Valley’s mayor and city council asked for the investigation and the report has been forwarded to law enforcement.

A copy of the report is available for review HERE.