Audit Report on the Office Equipment Inventory Practices at the 3 Staten Island Community Boards

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

New York City is divided into 59 administrative districts, each served by a Community Board, which is a local representative body authorized by the New York City Charter to advocate for the residents and needs of its district.  Community Boards have various responsibilities which, in addition to assessing neighborhoods’ needs and addressing community concerns, include vetting land use and zoning proposals.  Each Board has up to 50 non-salaried members appointed by the Borough President of the borough in which the Community Board is located.  Board members must reside, work, or have significant interests in the district they serve.

While Community Board members serve unpaid two-year terms, Community Boards’ operations are paid for with City funds.  With these funds, each Board hires a District Manager as its chief executive officer whose responsibilities include assisting the Board in the hiring of administrative staff, supervising the staff, and managing the daily operations of the district office.  Each Borough President’s Office also provides administrative assistance to the Community Boards.

Staten Island has three Community Boards, Community Boards 1, 2 and 3, which cover the entire borough.  Each of the Staten Island Boards has a District Manager and at least one full-time clerical staff member.  These salaries are covered by the Community Boards’ Personal Services budget.  In addition, the Community Boards are provided City funds to cover non-personal expenses, known as Other Than Personal Service.

The three Community Boards identified 141 items of office equipment (desktops, laptops, tablets, monitors, printers, scanners, fax machines, and televisions) on their inventory lists.  According to the Comptroller’s Directive #1, Agency Evaluation of Internal Controls Checklist, inventory items such as these require strong controls to ensure accurate recordkeeping and good security. Further, the Department of Investigation’s (DOI) Standards for Inventory Control and Management establishes the controls the Boards must follow.

This audit was conducted to determine whether the three Staten Island Community Boards comply with applicable inventory procedures for office equipment as set forth in DOI’s Standards for Inventory Control and Management and are maintaining effective internal controls over equipment and following the inventory requirements set forth in Comptroller’s Directive #1.

 Results

The audit found that the three Staten Island Community Boards (Boards) could account for all Fiscal Year 2013 and 2014 purchases and ensured that the 141 equipment items that were on their inventory lists were on hand.  However, with regard to maintaining complete and accurate inventory lists, the Boards generally did not adhere to DOI’s Standards for Inventory Control and Management or follow the guidance provided by Comptroller’s Directive #1.  Based on the results of our review, we concluded that compliance with required inventory controls needs improvement to avoid potential risks of loss, misappropriation or theft.

The audit made three recommendations, including that the Boards should:

• Ensure they maintain complete and accurate records of all office equipment in accordance with DOI’s Standards for Inventory Control and Management and Comptroller’s Directive #1;
• Correct the errors and omissions on their inventory lists that are cited in the report; and
• Provide sequential agency control numbers to 10 items with missing control numbers on their agency identification tags and add them to the inventory logs.

In their responses, the three Boards did not dispute the report’s recommendations and described the steps they have taken to implement the report’s recommendations.