City IT department doesn’t know where 10 percent, $4.8M of its stuff is: City Controller report

Philadelphia City Controller Alan Butkovitz says he randomly sampled 13 pieces of technology property from the city’s Office of Information Technology and could only locate five, raising concerns about potentially millions of dollars in missing, stolen, or otherwise unaccounted for property.

The audit findings were released as part of the FY07-09 Division of Technology Auditor’s report, available here [PDF].

The OIT told the City Controller that it only tracked a randomly selected 10 percent of its $4.8 million in assets, despite the fact that city regulations require departments to physically inspect personal property, according to a press release from the City Controller’s office.

The OIT’s mismanagement is the most recent instance of government mismanagement Butkovitz has sniffed out. In December, his investigations uncovered that nearly half a billion dollars of taxpayer money was being managed by outdated, unsupported technology from 1996 in the city’s procurement department, as Technically Philly reported.

Following past complaints from the Controller, some in the administration have voiced frustration that Butkovitz’s hardline expectations — which mostly follow the City Charter — are out of line with current realities.

In this most recent case, the five missing items —laptops, monitors and hardware — from the OIT inventory are reportedly worth $11,000, said spokesman Brian Dries.

The City Controller’s audit also found the OIT failed to properly account for franchise fees, raising questions about money owed to the city.