Audit Objective

Determine whether Saugerties Central School District (District) officials appropriately tracked, inventoried and safeguarded information technology (IT) assets acquired or in use during the audit period.

Key Findings

District officials did not appropriately track or inventory IT assets, maintain complete IT inventory records or establish adequate controls to safeguard IT assets. As a result, officials cannot assure taxpayers that money invested in IT assets has been appropriately spent or safeguarded.

We selected 50 IT assets to confirm their location and that they were inventoried, and 10 additional IT assets to confirm they were inventoried. We found 33 percent of the sampled assets were not properly accounted for. Specifically:

• A projector costing $599 and two Chromebooks with an approximate cost of $500 based on recent purchases), could not be located.
• Seventeen IT assets, with combined purchase prices of approximately $7,300 were not inventoried.

In addition, annual inventories were not conducted and officials did not adopt a comprehensive written policy for IT equipment inventory.

Key Recommendations

• Ensure District inventory records are complete and include the details necessary to adequately track and locate IT assets.
• Perform annual and complete physical inventories and compare results to inventory records.

District officials agreed with our recommendations and have initiated or indicated they planned to initiate corrective action.