Missouri Gaming commissioner requests a state audit of the agency

Less than two weeks after the Missouri Gaming Commission executive director announced he was stepping down, one of the board members who hired him wants the state auditor to probe the agency.

Missouri Gaming Commission member Dan Finney asked Auditor Nicole Galloway to investigate problems within the division of state government that oversees the state’s 13 casinos, according to an April 8 email reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

“The Gaming Commission has brought in $300 million-$400 million in tax revenue every year for the last several years. It is an important and complex commission. It needs to be audited,” Finney wrote. Galloway hasn’t made a decision on the request.

“Missouri State Auditor’s Office staff have had a conversation with a member of the Missouri Gaming Commission who was interested in requesting an audit of the commission. We are taking the concerns under review,” Galloway spokeswoman Steph Deidrick said.

Previous audits of the commission were completed in 2015, 2013 and 2009. Those audits had no findings.

Finney’s request for a probe came after the executive director of the commission, David Grothaus, announced he would retire on May 1, saying his attempts to cut spending at the “bloated” agency faced fierce resistance.

In an April 1 letter, Grothaus said some members of the Missouri Highway Patrol assigned to work at the state’s 13 casinos engaged in “guerrilla warfare” in an attempt to block his plans to replace them with lower paid civilian employees. 

That plan could save the agency millions of dollars, Finney said. For example, fringe benefits for patrol officers are much higher than civilian employees. Grothaus also said there are “excessive vehicle expenditures that are not needed for the job they perform.”

Commission chairman Mike Leara questioned the need for an audit. “My reaction is ‘why?’” Leara said Tuesday. “I’m not aware of anything that would require an audit.” A former Republican state lawmaker from St. Louis County, he was appointed to the commission by Gov. Mike Parson in April 2019. Finney, a Democrat, is an attorney who was appointed to the panel in 2017 by former Gov. Eric Greitens.

Leara said he’s in no rush to find a replacement for Grothaus, who earned about $128,000 annually. With the casinos shuttered because of the coronavirus pandemic he said the current staff can handle the work of the agency. “We just need to take it slow,” Leara said. “I don’t think we have an immediate need.”