After making public her office's audit of the St. Louis circuit clerk's office, state Auditor Susan Montee (left) was staying in town tonight for a joint fundraising event with Gov. Jay Nixon, (right) a fellow Democrat, at the St. Louis Club.

Tomorrow is the deadline for raising money during this latest three-month reporting period; the money will show up on reports due July 15.

Montee also is trying to complete and release as many audits as possible by the Aug. 3 primary, when Republicans will decide who her GOP rival will be this fall: lawyer and former Bush ambassador Thomas Schweich, or state Rep. and House budget chairman Allen Icet.

Only then does Montee plan to campaign in earnest.

As a result, Montee said she has been spending far more time "doing my job'' than campaigning for re-election. Which means that she also hasn't been devoting a lot of time to raising money.

That's where Nixon comes in.

Montee joked that Nixon "isn't Mitt Romney" -- a reference to the GOP presidential hopeful and former Massachusetts governor who headlined a local fundraiser in April for Schweich.

(The governor also isn't President Barack Obama, who will headline a July 8 fundraiser for the Democrats' other likely statewide candidate this fall, Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, who's running for the U.S. Senate.)

But Montee emphasized that she's certainly grateful for Nixon's help. "The governor has been really good about getting out and helping a lot of candidates,'' Montee said.

Nixon's political assistance (which he and his staff prefer not to talk about) hails back to the days of former Gov. Mel Carnahan, the last Democrat in the governor's mansion with approval ratings strong enough that he could use his clout and expertise to raise money for other Democratic officeholders and candidates who needed help.

Missouri governors also long have believed that it's politically more comfortable if the state auditor -- whose staff audits every other state and local office -- is of their own party.

(Mel Carnahan declared to a certain reporter in 1994 that his goal that year was to oust state Auditor Margaret Kelly, a Republican, who he felt had been too sympathetic to GOP officeholders. He failed, and she paid him back by challenging him in 1996. Carnahan trounced her -- but Kelly stayed on as auditor and continued to issue audits he disliked. Former Gov. Matt Blunt, a Republican, also was heavily involved behind-the-scenes in the 2006 effort to elect a Republican auditor and block Montee.)

As for Montee, she says she has tried to keep politics in mind -- but not her own -- as her office issues its audits of various local and county offices around the state.

She has mandated that audits must be released by July 3 -- this Saturday -- for any officeholder who faces a primary challenge on Aug. 3. Montee said she didn't believe it was fair to issue an audit too close to an election. If the release can't be made by July 3, she said her office will wait until after Aug. 3.

Which explains today's release of the audit pertaining to the office of city Circuit Clerk Mariano Favazza, a Democrat who is being challenged on Aug. 3 by lawyer Jane Schweitzer. Favazza and his rival both attended Montee's news conference today.

Circuit Clerk and rival banter over unclaimed millions

Leaked partial findings (in which Montee says she played no role) focused on the Circuit Court's handling of bail bonds.

But much of today's audit presentation actually focused other financial matters. Most notably, about $7.6 million in old circuit fee accounts and investments, where the true owner has yet to be found. Favazza legally has been using the interest from that money to help cover office expenses -- which helps his staff deal with any city budget cuts.

Favazza noted that those accounts had totalled close to $12 million when he was first elected in 1998, and said that the decline was proof that he was aggressively trying to find the rightful owners of that money.

Montee agreed to previous circuit clerks were largely to blame for amassing the cash. But she added that the circuit clerk's office at some point needs to shift the unclaimed millions to the state treasurer's office, which in turn will try to find the rightful owners under its "unclaimed property" campaigns.

"You've got a whole lot of money that belongs to someone,'' Montee said, noting that some of the money has been earning interest for decades.

Favazza said he isn't ready yet to give up finding the owners, and turn the money over to the state. Schweitzer contended that the circuit clerk is holding onto the money so that his office can use the interest to augment its operating funds from the cash-strapped city.

"He's really keeping two sets of books,'' Schweitzer said. She also called on Favazza to make public how much interest money his office has been collecting, and spending over the past 12 years.

Montee didn't stick around to hear the back and forth between Favazza and Schweitzer over their differing interpretations of the audit.

The auditor had other tasks to finish before heading off to tonight's fundraiser with the governor.