from: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0420missingproperty20.html

Phoenix audit hunts $500,000-plus in missing property
Yvonne Wingett and Ryan Konig
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 20, 2003 12:00 AM

Phoenix's city manager has ordered an audit of missing property after reports found more than half a million dollars in cash, shotguns, ammunition, computers and other equipment can't be accounted for.

In all, about 1,400 pieces of city equipment were reported to police as lost or stolen from offices, homes, work sites and city-owned vehicles from January 1999 to early 2003, according to a city report compiled by the Police Department.

"The report does raise some questions," said City Manager Frank Fairbanks, who requested the audit after The Republic asked about the property recovery rate and accountability among city employees.

"Until we do an analysis of this, it's hard to determine how serious it is," he said. "My guess is that some areas have very good security measurements and others need work."

Considering the city's operating budget of about $2 billion a year and its workforce of 13,880, the loss isn't bad, some economists and city officials said. It would be enough, however, to hire about five additional employees annually at $30,000 each. "Now that budgets are tight, and you're looking at what you're going to cut, things that look small in percentage terms begin to look large," University of Arizona economist George Frisvold said.

Among the items reported as stolen or lost:

43 firearms, including shotguns, Glocks and other weapons used by police, valued at $8,870; seven categorized as stolen and 36 as lost. Most have been found during inventory checks, but six of the lost guns remain "missing."

76 walkie-talkies valued at $95,889; 31 stolen, 45 lost.

29 computers valued at $68,620; 25 stolen; four lost.

$30,012 in cash; $29,557 stolen; $455 lost.

City officials cannot estimate how much of the missing property has been destroyed or damaged, stolen or is simply unaccounted for. Nor can they estimate how much of the equipment was taken by city employees or by others.

They contend that some items missing on paper are not really missing but "twisted through the system." They often turn up during inventory checks.

And they acknowledge that sloppy paperwork sometimes is the culprit, as when a piece of equipment is transferred to another department but isn't entered into a property database.

"It's like inventory at a store, where there should have been three TVs in stock" but there are none in the warehouse, Phoenix Auditor Bob Wigenroth said. "It's because in some cases the inventories weren't done correctly, and they were misplaced."

The Fire and Police departments are among those hardest hit for missing and stolen equipment.

For instance, the six missing guns could have been sold when the Police Department upgraded to new weapons, or they could have been reassigned to another unit in the department and "the paperwork hasn't caught up," police Sgt. Randy Force said.

"(Six) shotguns missing is not something the Police Department is proud of. But there's no reason to suspect these guns are in the wrong hands."

He believes the items are not stolen but have been misplaced or transferred.

Items reported stolen include $20,000 in cash pinched from a large office safe, a container with $9,000 worth of morphine, valium and other controlled substances swiped from the Fire Department; Ping-Pong and foosball tables; refrigerators and stoves; several "jaws of life" and even a vending machine.

And somebody apparently coveted firefighter brush pants.

"They were considered fashionable," Assistant Fire Chief Bob Khan said. "Young people were taking them from the firetrucks."

About 30 employees have been fired, demoted or suspended for incidents involving theft or carelessness in handling city property from January 1999 to March 2003.

An employee could be asked to pay for lost items, depending on the number of times equipment turns up missing under their watch.

Phoenix has more than $8 billion in assets. Much of that lies in buildings, parks, street pipes, equipment and inventories. The city is self-insured and there's a $25,000 deductible to cover stolen, missing or damaged property.

No replacement fund is built into the budget, so many items are not immediately replaced.

"We don't even want the small things taking a walk," Water Department spokesman Ken Kroski said. "When we've got guys that park a vehicle and go down in a ditch, they try and secure (things) as much as they can. But when people are walking by, you never know what they can snatch and walk away with."

Each of the city's 26 departments is responsible for developing a process to keep track of its inventory of "low-value assets," or property valued less than $5,000, Wigenroth said.

In addition, during the past three years officials have carried out 22 cash-handling audits, eight inventory audits and 17 asset audits.

But the city has no centralized system to monitor what's missing across all departments. Nor can city officials determine how much has been recovered and from where.

Fairbanks has ordered city auditors and department officials to review the report to examine the recovery rate and the "process for managing our inventory as a whole to make sure our procedures are correct," Wigenroth said.

"The fact that we have assets, be it cash, or be it tools, be it anything that is stolen and those assets are being purchased by taxpayers, it's a serious issue."

Reach the reporter at yvonne.wingett@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-4712.

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