A new county audit shows that Clark County’s facilities management needs to keep better track of its stuff.
According to the audit, the county’s facilities management doesn’t have adequate controls in place to ensure that keys and access cards, as well as tools, equipment and smaller supplies, don’t go missing.
The audit, discussed by the county’s Audit Oversight Committee on Thursday, is the third in a series of audits that have looked into how the county has handled materials. The previous two have focused on the sheriff’s office and the Public Works department.
Bob Stevens, the director of General Services, which oversees facilities management, said at the meeting that he requested the audit because he knew there were problems.
“We asked for this, and I expected a poor result and I got a poor result,” said Stevens. “But now we are going to fix it.”
A lack of accounting
The audit found that facilities management didn’t consistently label or keep a list of smaller items, such as drills, saws, wrenches, equipment and custodial supplies. Facilities management also didn’t identify “high risk” assets, small and attractive items that could be easily stolen, according to the audit. Arnold Perez, senior performance auditor, said these items could be lost or an employee could “convert it to personal use,” and the audit was unable to determine if loss had occurred with such items.
The audit also identified $345,000 in materials left over from completed facilities projects, including fitting, cabling, switches, electric fan motors and other items that were neither tracked nor inventoried and were at high risk of being stolen.
“Small and attractive items were treated as expendable and weren’t consistently tracked,” said Perez.
But Perez said facilities management has already recognized the issues identified in the audit and is moving toward a centralized method of procuring and tracking items.
Mike Wright, facilities section manager, noted that facilities management had begun using foam inserts to store and transport tools so it would be more obvious if one went missing.
The audit also found that facilities management didn’t effectively keep track of keys and access cards, increasing the risk of unauthorized access to county buildings. The audit states that facilities management had not conducted an annual inventory of keys and access cards as required by county policy. The audit found that 16 access cards assigned to employees who had left the county had activity on them past the date of their separation.
Wright explained that this situation is likely due to records not being updated when an employee leaves the county and the card is assigned to a new user.
“We’ve already set up procedures with (Human Resources). We are now getting regular reports of people who terminate for whatever reason,” said Stevens, who added that there was “no excuse” for the situation.
Perez also said a total of 170 keys had been classified as “lost.” Wright explained that an electronic access card can be deactivated. If a key is lost, a department will determine how sensitive the area is that the key unlocks, he said. If it’s deemed to be a big enough risk, the area will be re-keyed, he said.
Stevens said the county is taking a physical inventory of employee keys. He said it would be ideal to have an all-electronic system, but switching over would be prohibitively expensive.
