Last November's Miller County audit exposed a problem other Missouri counties didn't know they had - current state law only allows circuit clerks to handle U.S. passport applications.
So state Sen. Dan Brown, R-Rolla, wants lawmakers to let county commissions select an office to provide the service, in the event the circuit clerk doesn't want to do it.
Brown also would let the office performing the service keep revenues from processing the passports.
"There is no authority for the Recorder of Deeds to collect passport fees, and the county cannot demonstrate the fees collected were spent in accordance with state law," the state audit of Miller County reported.
During 2013, the state auditor said, Miller County's recorder's office processed 136 passport applications and collected $18,360 in processing fees.
"The county retains $25 of each passport fee and retained $3,400 during that year, which was turned over to the County Treasurer as general revenue," the auditors said.
But Missouri law says that money "shall be used only for the maintenance of the courthouse or to fund operations of the circuit court."
Camden County Commissioner Beverly Thomas told the Senate's Jobs, Economic Development and Local Government Committee a state law change led the circuit clerk to stop processing passports.
"We checked with other offices in the courthouse, and there were no other office holders that chose to take on the task," she said.
"We checked with our two, big local post offices and neither of them chose to take on the task."
So the Camden County commission has been doing that work since 2006.
"The commission contacted the (federal) Passport Acceptance Agency and received our letter allowing us to go ahead and handle passports for them," Thomas explained. "We process hundreds of them every year."
Nearly 600 last year alone, according to Cliff Luebbert, another Camden commissioner.
The $25 fee the county keeps has been used to buy office equipment for several Camden County offices and has been given to others to help promote tourism, including the Tri-County Lodging Association and the Lake region's Convention and Visitors Bureau.
"We have a very large Civil War re-enactment that takes place every couple of years and attracts thousands of visitors to our area," Luebbert told the senators. "We have also given donations out of this passport fund to assist them in getting their project off the ground."
But the Miller County audit has caused county governments to seek the law change, Camden County Presiding Commissioner Greg Hasty told the lawmakers.
"I think the citizens in every county in this state should have an expectation to be able to go into their courthouse and be able to get a passport," Hasty said.
"The court system itself is extremely busy, and they really are declining to do this because they simply don't have the time and resources to do it, and there's just not enough involved for them to be involved with it, at all."
Cole County Circuit Clerk Dawnel Davidson said her office doesn't do passports.
But they are available at Jefferson City's Main Post Office, 133 W. High St., on a daily basis and during occasional "Passport Fairs" on Saturdays.
Passports also are available from post offices in Fulton, Columbia and Sunrise Beach.
Morgan County's passports are processed by the circuit clerk's office.
And Phelps County's county clerk handles them.
But there's no passport agency listed for Osage, Gasconade, Maries, Miller or Moniteau counties, the State department site shows.
The Senate committee took no action on Brown's bill Tuesday.