MONTGOMERY: Have you ever lost or had a laptop computer stolen from you? 46 state employees have, and that's not all. A new report shows the State has lost nearly $800,000 worth of equipment over the past two years, equipment purchased with your tax dollars.
The amount of missing equipment doesn't total 1/20th of 1% of all the State's equipment, but State Auditor Samantha Shaw says every penny counts, because you paid for it. Shaw's job is to keep track of $1.8(B) worth of state property. Thanks to bar codes and scanners, the State has a good idea of what it owns, it just sometimes doesn't know where all of it is. Some of the missing items include 46 laptop computers, plus fax machines, filing cabinets, cars, night vision goggles and even guns! In all, it's worth more than $786,000.
"Every piece of equipment, every vehicle the state owns is significant," says Shaw. "Whether its one $500 laptop, or the amount we're currently reporting, everything is critical because it was purchased with state tax dollars."
Not all of the equipment is stolen. Some of it might have been out of the office when auditors came through, some of it broke and was retired, or it got destroyed. Still, Shaw wants to know where it all is, because taxpayers paid for it.
"If it is stolen we get a police report," says Shaw. "If it's destroyed we have the insurance claim or the scrap on site reports who we know it no longer has value."
The biggest "loser" in this year's audit is the Department of Public Safety, at $260,000 worth of equipment.
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