ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - The Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick's office released a detailed report on an audit on Tuesday of the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's office while it was under Kim Gardner.
Fitzpatrick joined Chris Rongey and Amy Marxkors on 'The Chris and Amy Show' to give more insight into the audit of the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office while it was under Gardner.
"It was a total failure of leadership by Gardner, which we all pretty much knew," said Fitzpatrick. "The audit details with numbers and data how bad it actually was."
In the audit, it found Gardner spent an equivalent of nearly 35 days or approximately seven weeks of work time towards a nursing degree at Saint Louis University while on the job.
In addition, it also found over $58,000 misused, with some of the money went towards DJ services, chili cook out supplies, car detailing, party and community meeting locations flowers and more.
"The bar is higher for governmental entities when it comes to office parties and things of that nature," said Fitzpatrick. "Whenever we have any type of function, there's either a training aspect to it. There's some benefit to the taxpayers of that meeting being held. If it's not, the principal when it comes to elected officials will be the costs of that."
"For her to throw office parties, to hire DJs, and spent $5,000 at a bar-and-grill, those sort of things is not something that is generally allowable of government entities."
Fitzpatrick says under Gardner, the Circuit Attorney's office completely fell apart under her leadership with staff going from 141 employees when Gardner began to only 89 people when she resigned.
"There was a 35% drop in staff and when you look at attorneys, it was a 55% decline," said Fitzpatrick. "She was down to only 24 attorneys in the Circuit Attorney's Office when she resigned."
Fitzpatrick says the Circuit Attorney's office saw around 6,700 cases that were referred to the office that weren't even looked at and entered into it's case management system as it was just sitting in the email inboxes.
The report also detailed how the office struggled under Gardner, with the number of cases filed nearly cut in half and a 40% increase in the number of cases refused.
The average time for cases to be closed grew from 293 to 463 days. Under current Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore, that number has significantly dropped to an average of 142 days.
You can click to the player above to listen to Fitzpatrick's full discussion of the audit on 'The Chris and Amy Show'