Audit Report on the City Commission on Human Rights’ Controls over Its Inventory of Computers and Computer-Related Equipment
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The New York City Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is responsible for enforcing the New York City Human Rights Law (Title 8 of the Administrative Code of the City of New York). Under that law, it is illegal to discriminate against persons seeking employment, housing, and public accommodations on the basis of, among other things, age, race, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion/creed, and citizenship status.
CCHR has two major Bureaus—Law Enforcement and Community Relations. The Law Enforcement Bureau is responsible for the intake, investigation, and prosecution of complaints alleging violations of the Human Rights Law. The Community Relations Bureau provides public education regarding the Human Rights Law and assists in cultivating an understanding and respect for the City’s many diverse communities through its borough-based Community Service Centers (CSCs) and various educational and outreach programs. CCHR has five CSCs, one in each borough. The Manhattan office is a combined central office and CSC.
CCHR’s inventory of computers and related equipment is managed and tracked through use of a handheld scanner to upload the asset tag and serial numbers of computer-related items into its Inventory Management System (IMS). According to CCHR policy, all computers and related items with a value of $50 or more should be tagged.
From July 1, 2015 through June 30, 2017, CCHR expended approximately $200,000 on computers and related equipment. As of August 18, 2017, CCHR’s Asset Inventory Listing (inventory list) identified a total of 1,062 computers and related items.
Audit Findings and Conclusions
CCHR management needs to improve its controls over the agency’s inventory of computers and related equipment. CCHR’s policies and procedures did not provide sufficient guidance to its staff for the accounting and safeguarding of its computers and related equipment. In addition, the agency did not ensure that annual inventory counts were conducted.
Although CCHR was generally able to account for the items sampled from its inventory records, we found a number of inventory weaknesses relating to the tagging of computer assets, the maintenance of an accurate inventory list of those assets, and their disposal.
Improvement in CCHR’s controls over its inventory operations would help reduce the risk of its computer assets being misplaced or misappropriated.
To address these issues, the audit recommends, among other things, that CCHR:
- Develop and disseminate detailed written policies and procedures governing the agency’s management of its inventory of computers and related equipment.
- Conduct independent annual inventory counts of its computers and related equipment.
- Ensure that all computers and related items worth more than $50 are, upon receipt, promptly tagged and recorded in the agency’s inventory records.
- Ensure that asset tag numbers are issued in sequential order and that any gaps in those numbers are investigated and the reasons for them adequately documented.
- Ensure that it assigns a unique asset tag number to each item and that no items are distributed to staff until the items have been tagged and the tag numbers have been added to the inventory list.
- Ensure that asset information is correctly recorded on its inventory records, both when an item is initially received and when an update is needed, such as when an asset is reassigned or relocated.
- Ensure that all of the items claimed to have been disposed of are easily traceable from the disposal records to the inventory records
Agency Response
In its response, CCHR stated that it agreed to implement all of the audit’s 11 recommendations. The full text of CCHR’s response is included as an addendum to this report.