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The auditor’s office is reviewing credit card expenses and payroll payouts by the city’s former assistant city manager and finance director, and a former accountant.

Auditors are also looking into allegations the city paid travel expenses for the two officials for reasons that may have been personal and not for city business, according to a letter obtained by the Post-Dispatch.

Webster Groves City Manager Marie Peoples denied any improper spending and said the city is fully complying with the auditor’s review.

“The City of Webster Groves is doing exactly what we need to do in being excellent stewards of taxpayer dollars,� she said in an interview.

Trevor Fox, a spokesman for Fitzpatrick, said the office is in the “initial review� to determine if the complaints are credible. If so, a full investigation or financial audit would follow.

Mary Johnson, chief investigator for the state auditor, wrote to Webster Groves on July 14 to say the office was reviewing a “complaint from constituents� that Eric Peterson, the former assistant city manager and finance director, and Jeff McDonald, a former accountant, made improper expenses.

Peterson and McDonald, both of whom resigned from the city in late 2024, could not be reached for comment.

Peterson resigned from Webster Groves in November after more than three years, citing personal health reasons. He is now a deputy county manager in Coconino County, Arizona, where he previously worked with Peoples. Webster Groves paid him $145,548 in 2024, according to public pay records.

McDonald, who was hired to the city March 11, 2024, resigned in late December. He was paid $51,481.

Johnson, the state investigator, requested the city provide by July 28 credit card statements, invoices for travel expenditures, payroll records, timesheets, and open and closed city council meeting minutes between Jan. 1, 2024, and Dec. 31, 2024, according to the letter.

Peoples said Webster Groves provided the auditor the requested records, which she said had been previously reviewed by independent auditors. The city conducts a third-party financial audit each year, and has not found any improper spending, she said.

The auditor’s office received several documents from Webster Groves on Aug. 21, said Fox, the spokesman.

The state auditor launched a similar probe in February when the St. Louis County Council asked the agency to investigate complaints of misspending and mismanagement in the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney’s office.

Complaints in Chesterfield led Fitzpatrick’s office to audit the city’s public financing package to redevelop the former mall, which determined that city officials there did not violate state law when they approved the incentives. And last month, Fitzpatrick’s office launched an investigation of the north St. Louis County suburb of Pine Lawn in response to complaints raised by city’s board of aldermen.

Peoples said that Webster Groves had also responded to a probe by another state agency in July.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey wrote to the city requesting records in response to a complaint about the city flying an LGBTQ Pride flag and the city’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies, Peoples said.

She defended the city and said it is complying with the former attorney general’s request.

“The city is upholding our beliefs and values,� she said.

The email from Bailey’s office, dated July 30, said it had received a complaint that Webster Groves violated free speech laws by flying the Pride flag “while rejecting requests to fly other flags.� The office sought city records, including communications and flag purchases, dated around June, LGBTQ Pride month.

Bailey’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Peoples said the two letters from state investigators appeared to be in response to complaints made at the same time.

“My assumption is that it would be the same group of citizens that have concerns about how the city is operating,� Peoples said.