JEFFERSON CITY, MO (September 23, 2026) — Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick today released his office’s review of how Missouri state agencies managed and spent approximately $20.5 billion in federal funds during Fiscal Year 2025. This year’s Statewide Single Audit reviewed 21 major federal programs with expenditures totaling approximately $16 billion, administered by 9 state agencies.
“With the billions of dollars flowing into our state each year from the federal government, it is crucial that each and every dollar is used appropriately and in compliance with federal requirements. I am proud of the work my office does each year to thoroughly examine the controls and procedures the various state agencies have in place, but also concerned that so many of the recommendations we make year after year to ensure our state is providing sufficient oversight of these funds are not put into place in a timely manner,” said Auditor Fitzpatrick. “As you can see from many of the repeat findings in this year’s audit, we have departments and agencies that continue to ignore our recommendations, and in doing so increase the risk for fraud and potentially jeopardize future federal funding. It’s time for state officials to take our findings seriously and work immediately to put these recommendations into place.”
The audit of the state’s expenditures of federal awards for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025, contains 16 findings, of which 9 were repeated from prior Single Audits. These findings have been reported in the prior 1 to 4 years.
Similar to what was noted in the previous audit report, the current report contains 4 findings regarding state agencies – the Office of Administration (OA), the Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS), and the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) – failing to properly monitor more than $569 million in funds passed through to subrecipients in Fiscal Year 2025. The audit identifies weaknesses in monitoring procedures in the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) program and for the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), while also finding the SEMA completed only 25% of the required number of subrecipient monitoring reviews for disaster assistance program subrecipients.
As similarly noted in the Fiscal Year 2024 and 2023 audits, the report found the DHSS, which oversees the CACFP, does not have sufficient controls and procedures to ensure reimbursements to child and adult care facilities and sponsors are allowable and supported with sufficient documentation. Over the last 3 years the error rate has increased so that erroneous and unsupported reimbursements now represent 12% of meal reimbursements tested. The audit also found DHSS subrecipient monitoring procedures are not sufficient to ensure CACFP subrecipient compliance with program requirements. As a result, significant unallowable and unsupported reimbursements continue to be made without being prevented or detected on a timely basis, and monitoring reviews identified significant errors, noncompliance, disallowances, and overclaims.
A randomly-selected sample of 60 DHSS monitoring reviews conducted for 60 CACFP facilities/sponsors during the year ended June 30, 2025, noted DHSS disallowances (overclaims/underclaims) in 50 of 58 (86%) reviews for which meal reimbursement claims were tested and errors quantified. Overclaims totaled $72,561 (43 reviews) and underclaims totaled $4,275 (7 reviews), with a net overclaim of $68,286, or at least 12% of claims tested by the DHSS. While the DHSS adjusted subsequent claims to recoup or reimburse for the identified overclaims/underclaims, unallowable costs could be significant if similar errors were made on the remaining population of CACFP meal reimbursements totaling approximately $69.9 million. The recommendation to enhance procedures related to identification and recoupment of overclaims, as required by federal regulations, and expanded testing when significant errors are identified has been in included in the audit report for the last 3 years, but the DHSS has continued to ignore the recommendation, which will likely allow significant improper payments to subrecipients to continue.
As similarly noted in 2 previous Statewide Single Audits, the OA had not established policies and procedures regarding monitoring subrecipients of the SLFRF program. As a result, the OA and 2 other state agencies did not comply with the requirements regarding identifying and monitoring subrecipients of the SLFRF program. For the year ended June 30, 2025, approximately $302 million was passed through to subrecipients of the SLFRF program. Similar to the finding in last year’s report, the SEMA did not fully comply with subrecipient monitoring requirements for the Disaster Grants – Public Assistance (Presidentially Declared Disasters) (DGPA) program. The SEMA did not communicate all required federal award information to subrecipients, completed only 25% of the required number of subrecipient monitoring reviews, and did not perform supervisory reviews of some monitoring reviews.
Of the 16 findings contained in the Statewide Single Audit, 8 are related to the administration of the Medicaid program and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) by the Department of Social Services (DSS) and the DHSS. One finding notes how the DSS does not have sufficient controls to ensure participants of the Medicaid program and the CHIP are not improperly enrolled in more than one eligibility system. As of May 2025, there were 9,834 participants dually enrolled in both eligibility systems.
As noted in 2 previous audits, the vital records death match was not operating in the Medicaid Eligibility Determination and Enrollment System during the year ended June 30, 2025. As a result, there is no assurance that all participants in the Medicaid program and the CHIP are eligible for benefits and there is an opportunity for improper benefit payments to be made. The failure to implement and enforce adequate internal controls to ensure participants are not improperly enrolled in more than one eligibility system increases the risk that improper Medicaid program and CHIP payments may be made or claimed at the incorrect federal/state share.
The audit report also identifies the DSS continues to not have sufficient controls to ensure eligibility determinations are performed within required timeframes for participants of the Medicaid program and the CHIP. As noted in 3 previous audits, significant application processing delays continued during the year ended June 30, 2025. A test of compliance with eligibility requirements noted 19 of 120 eligibility determinations were made 7 to 115 days after the required timeframes and averaged approximately 40 days late.
The audit also finds the DSS does not have sufficient controls to ensure compliance with eligibility redeterminations are completed as required for certain Medicaid programs and the CHIP participants whose eligibility is based on their Modified Adjusted Gross Income. As of December 31, 2025, the DSS had a backlog of approximately 85,000 participants, for which redeterminations had not been completed. As noted in 2 previous audits, the MHD lacked adequate controls over Medicaid and CHIP receipts totaling approximately $1.4 billion.
Four other findings in the report focus on the insufficient controls and procedures in various agencies to ensure accurate and timely submission of Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA) reports. During state fiscal year 2025, the Division of Finance and Administrative Services within the DSS, did not timely submit FFATA reports for 1 subrecipient of the Medicaid program and 3 subrecipients of the Social Services Block Grant program. Additionally, the SEMA did not fully comply with FFATA reporting requirements for 6 of 17 DGPA subawards reviewed, and the Department of Economic Development did not fully comply with FFATA reporting requirements for 18 of 27 Community Development Block Grant program subawards. The FFATA requires comprehensive reporting for certain federal awards to promote transparency and accountability over the use of the federal funds.
A complete copy of the Statewide Single Audit for fiscal year 2025 is available here.