In our county, our county auditor administers our hot check and asset forfeiture funds--i.e., handles disbursements, bookkeeping, etc.. Are there any prosecutor's offices out there that handle the administration of these funds themselves or contract with outside accounting or bookkeeping entities for such services? I'm curious.

Our hot check receipts go to the treasurer, but we make disbursements. The auditor only audits the accounts.

Is there any legal reason anyone is aware of that we couldn't contract with a CPA firm to handle these accounts?

You could opt for an outside audit, but you might find the cost more prohibitive than having the county do it. Although hot check revenue has been seriously decreasing over the last several years, thanks to electronic transfer and debit cards, my county has been most understanding on the fee that it charges for the audit services as I struggle to figure out how to cut more costs and do the same with less.

We do all of our disbursements from our office and all recordkeeping as well. We do send the required reports to the Auditor and they make sure everything balances(which we already know prior to sending it to them).
I also use some of the fees for additional salary for the employees of the office(excluding yours truely) and we contract with a local CPA to file the required uneployment tax reports, etc. I don't see any difference in contracting with an outside firm as opposed to spending $ for a computer program that will allow you to do such things in-house which, I think we all agree, is a proper expediture.
Seems to me to be similar logic to allowing a county to contract for collections as set out in CCP 103. It is not costing the county any $, it is all coming from fees generated from the offenders.
My $.02 worth!

For both asset forfeiture proceeds and hot check fees the proceeds have to be deposited into "a special fund in the county treasury". CCP 59.06(c)(1) for forfeitures; and CCP 102.007(f) for hot check fees. The prosecutor has exclusive control over each fund but the checks have to be issued by and signed by the auditor and/or treasurer since prosecutors usually don't get to sign on county treasury accounts. At least my county judge hasn't put me on the signature card. In our case the treasurer issues checks on my request. I like to run check requests through the auditor and commissioners' court to let them know about money I'm spending that doesn't have to come out of the general fund.

Trust funds for both hot checks and forfeitures can be deposited in an interest bearing account at a local bank (see CCP 59.08)so that the prosecutor can write his/her own disbursement checks for deposit into the treasury fund or sending to the law enforcement agency.

Our county auditor supplies monthy reports on hot check and forfeiture fund accounts just like all the other departmental funds. You can have an independent audit done but the annual outside done for the couty should also include these fund accounts.

I asked several people at the elected conference how they handled their hot check program, and of the five or six I talked to, all of them deposited fees with the Co Treasurer, and payments from the fund were made with checks signed by the treasurer and the auditor. Realize this is not scientific sampling, but does indicate that some understand this to be the appropriate way of handling hot check funds. I know that some other CA's have an account in a local bank and the treasurer never sees any of the money. Maybe they have authority for this procedure that we have not seen? I certainly never run my hot check expenditures past the comm court, but perhaps Patrick has a unique reason for doing so.... The last thing I want to do is to sign my own name on checks for expenditures from the hot check fund.

When I started hot check collections here about 12 years ago, I did not want the extra accounting burden of writing checks. I started depositing the money with the treasurer and letting her and the auditor handle check writing.

Realizing that we are a small county, and the auditor has no post HS graduation, you also have to realize that there are those folks who really need absolute rules. In her case, one of the rules she has learned is that no check is written that is not approved by the Commissioners. Since they understand that they do not have the authority to refuse a request through the hot check fund, it has not been a problem. In addition, they see where the money goes, and have been outspoken at their conferences in saying that their CA uses the funds in an appropriate manner which assists the county.

Running it through them has had some unexpected benefits!