NYC Schools Are Missing Nearly 2,000 Computers: Audit

NEW YORK CITY — If the New York City school system wants to teach the next generation how to use computers, the Department Of Education might want to take an introductory course on hardware safety.

The city DOE misplaced more than 1,800 computers — desktops, laptops and tablets — and more than 3,500 machines were not properly accounted for, increasing the risk they might be lost or stolen, according to an audit from City Comptroller Scott Stringer's office.

"When we should be preparing our kids for the great age of technology, when coding is changing the world, the DOE is losing and misplacing its tech equipment," Stringer said in a statement. "This isn’t just a massive mess – it’s wrong. When laptops and tablets go missing, or are stored in closets gathering dust, children and teachers are let down."

The comptroller's audit, which studied just nine DOE sites, found that 1,816 total computers were missing and 3,541 total devices were not listed in the department's inventory. The audit found that 35 percent of the nine sites' total computer inventory of approximately 14,000 were not properly accounted for.

It gets worse: The DOE knew that its systems for computer inventory were already flawed.

In 2014, an audit from the comptroller's office found that the DOE had misplaced 1,817 devices. In the two years since the DOE was alerted on its inadequate records and inventory systems it managed to misplace just one less computer. The follow up audit also determined that just 234 of the 1,817 computers reported missing in 2014 have since been found — which accounts for 12.9 percent.

Despite the DOE's failures to maintain its computer inventory the department spent $209.9 million between July 2014 and March 2016 through contracts with Apple, Lenovo, and CDW Government, LLC, according to the Comptrollers office.

"The DOE has known about these problems since we audited this very issue over two years ago – and the agency has made no real progress in addressing them," Stringer said in a statement. "We constantly hear the same excuses from the agency – that monitoring is in place, that systems are functioning the way they should, and that the public should trust that everything is fine. As this audit once again shows, taxpayer dollars are exposed to waste, fraud, or abuse – and it’s coming at our kids’ expense. This has to change."

The Department of Education shot back at the comptroller's office, calling the audit "fundamentally flawed and unreliable" in a statement sent to Patch. Ninety-one percent of schools certified their inventories last school year, a DOE spokesman told Patch.

The DOE also had issues with how the audit was conducted. Comptroller's office staffers incorrectly compared technology items with the DOE's Asset Management System — which it maintains is not a centralized inventory system — instead of the department's purchasing system, a department spokesman told Patch. Auditors also interviewed the wrong DOE staff members at certain sites and did not ask appropriate follow up questions about equipment, the spokesman said.

"This audit’s findings are fundamentally flawed and unreliable, and we’re committed to improving our inventory system for technology," DOE spokesman Will Mantell told Patch in a statement. "We’re training teachers to better use technology as a tool in their classroom and will continue to invest in cost-effective solutions that catalogue and safeguard technology purchases in the best interests of students, schools and taxpayers."

Photo by Anthony DePrimo/Associated Press