COST OF ANTI-DRUG TAX AUDIT RISES

An audit of Jackson County's anti-drug tax spending will cost more and
take longer than expected but review fewer years of the tax.

Jackson County Legislator Ronald Finley introduced an ordinance Monday
to spend $27,500 more with auditors Cochran, Head & Co. of Kansas City.

However, under the proposal the firm wouldn't be required to audit the
anti-drug tax back to 1990, the first year the tax was collected.
Instead, the audit - which originally was expected to cost $90,000 -
would cover only 1996 through 2003.

Legislator Bob Spence said he supported reducing the time frame
because the county had retained too few records from the early years
of the tax for an adequate review.

" Spence said it would have cost an additional $25,000 to $30,000 to
retrieve the remaining records from microfilmed archives or to
recreate missing records by contacting outside agencies that received
the anti-drug tax money.

Spence said the proposed increase in the firm's contract is for time
spent determining which years had enough records to audit and for
recreating information from records missing between 1997 and 1998.

The Community-Backed Anti-Drug Tax, called COMBAT, is a quarter-cent
sales tax for law enforcement, drug prevention and drug treatment.
Voters approved it in 1989 and renewed it in 1995 and 2003. County
officials called for an independent audit of COMBAT in February after
Jackson County Prosecutor Michael Sanders questioned how tax money and
a surplus was spent.