The LSU System has reported $3.86 million in missing property during the past three years among its University campuses. Rose Mary Wilhelm, executive director of Procurement Services and Property Management, said this is a small fraction of the System’s $338 million inventory. She said it is difficult to account for the System’s 64,000 items, which includes office furniture, chairs and computers. Tom Cole, director of financial audit for the Louisiana Legislative Auditor Office, said he considers any missing property to be significant. “That’s your tax dollars that are going down the drain,” he said. The campuses involved in the audit include LSU’s main campus, LSU-Eunice, LSU-Alexandria, the LSU Agricultural Center and the System’s on-campus office. Wilhelm said most of the property that qualified as missing were old, broken items that were discarded without the proper paperwork. Wilhelm explained that each University department is in charge of completing its own inventory and has three years to find missing items. Almost half of the 800 items missing from 2003 were found or accounted for by 2006, she said. The legislative auditor began compiling data of unlocated movable property from state universities, agencies and hospitals for the first time in 2005. The Single Audit of the state of Louisiana in 2005 declared “$29,456,455 (or 2.5 percent) of total movable property as unlocated, with $15,360,248 in computers and computer-related equipment.” These numbers dropped to $24 million and $12.6 million in 2006, according to the Single Audit. The Property Management Office is working to improve the monitoring of the property, Wilhelm said. Cole said solving this problem is a simple matter of increasing controls. He said there are controls all agencies can implement including tracking and safeguarding of items.
—-Contact Emmy Gill at [email protected]