Missing from LAUSD Schools: $2M Worth of Computers

More than $2 million worth of Los Angeles Unified School District computers, mostly iPads, could not be accounted for during a recent audit by the school system’s inspector general, it was reported today.

The review also found that the school district lacked an effective tracking system -- and that losses could be even higher as a result, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“The district did not have a complete, adequate and centralized inventory record of all of its computers,” the report said. “There was an increased potential for fraud, misuse and abuse of district resources.”

L.A. Unified spent about $67 million from July 2011 through June 2013 to purchase 70,000 computers and mobile devices from Apple and Arey Jones, a vendor.

The totals in the audit are estimates because, the report said, according to The Times, ”we were unable to determine the exact number of computers and mobile devices purchased through the master contracts for the period under review because the information needed was incomplete, inaccurate, or unavailable.”

The audit found campuses that had a surplus of devices and schools with no effective system to track who had a computer or who was responsible for it, according to The Times.

In one case, the charter school division said it transferred 30 laptops and three desktops from one closed campus to another school. But the second one said it never received anything. And 106 computers from a closed occupational center could not be located, according to the report quoted by The Times.

--City News Service

PHOTO Patch file photo.