Aug. 18: Legislative Audit State Agencies transcript

Joint Audit, State Agencies Subcommittee

August 18, 2022

 

Lundstrum Get started. We have a short agenda today. Mr. Spencer, if you would start us off, let’s call this– I’ll call this meeting to order. 

 

Spencer Thank you, Madam Chair. Today we are presenting six audit reports: one with finding, five without findings. 

 

Lundstrum First, I’d like to accept the minutes from the last meeting, from the June 2 meeting. Do I have a motion to accept? Representative Bentley, so moved. A second? Second from Senator Hickey. All in favor, aye. All right. Thank you. Then, Mr. Spencer, if you would take us on. 

 

Spencer All right. We have six reports today: one with a finding, five without finding. The five without finding are listed on page 1 of your synopsis. 

 

Lundstrum Any questions? Any questions on those without finding? Okay. I need a motion to approve. Representative Bentley moves. A second from Representative– thank you, Senator Hickey. So moved. All in favor. All right. Let’s move to the next one, Mr. Spencer. 

 

Spencer The report that we have with the finding is the Department of Education for the year ending June 30, 2021, and it contains one finding. Arkansas Code states that it is the responsibility of the executive head of each state agency to keep and maintain a record of all agency property belonging to the state. A review of capital assets at the Arkansas School for the Deaf identified two items with a total recorded value of $33,000 that could not be located and one item with a recorded value of $35,000 that was removed from the capital asset records but is still in the agency’s possession. 

 

Lundstrum Thank you, Mr. Spencer. I believe we have some folks from the agency that are here. If I could ask you to come forward and identify yourselves for the record, please. 

 

Rogers Thank you. Greg Rogers, Department Education. 

 

Boward Greg Boward, Department of Education. 

 

Lundstrum Thank you, gentlemen. Can you help us on this? 

 

Rogers Sure. So the equipment inventory list at the deaf school, they do have a lot of older equipment that they’ve had for over the years. And until they became part of ADE, it wasn’t as looked at on our inventory list. So now that they’re part of us, we are having to go through and account for their inventory too. And it’s just, the items that were listed were 30 years old. They were older items. Some of it, the deaf school thought they’d gotten rid of it. Some they didn’t even know they still had. So what we’re doing now is we’ve got two people on that campus going through the older equipment first, the older inventory list first, to try to clear that out and keep going with the newer stuff that I think we’ll have a better control over. So we’re, we’re working through it right now with them. 

 

Lundstrum Anything you want to add, sir? 

 

Boward I think he covered it. 

 

Lundstrum All right. Senator Hickey? 

 

Hickey Yes, ma’am. Just a question. It said you had two items is what is in question is two items with the total recorded value of $33,075. What are the two items? 

 

Rogers I don’t, I don’t know if I had the list. 

 

Spencer The items– one was a printer and the other was a plate maker. 

 

Hickey Okay. Have the age on those? Whenever you say a printer, is it a 30-year old printer? 

 

Spencer The printer is 50 years old. 

 

Hickey Okay. 

 

Spencer And the, the offset plate maker is about 20 years old. And so what we’ve asked is that they update their, their records. 

 

Hickey Thank you. 

 

Pitsch I’ve got a question. 

 

Lundstrum Senator Pitsch. 

 

Pitsch A question to follow up Senator Hickey. Is the cost accurate or is that a cost that– that’s got to be– I mean, something 50 years old doesn’t still have a $30,000 value. 

 

Spencer It’s recorded on their books at historic value. That’s the accounting rules. 

 

Pitsch So we got no depreciation involved whatsoever. So the fact they’re gone, there’s a true value versus on the books value, I’m assuming. Does anybody have a true value? Is there any value left in them? 

 

Rogers I have– I don’t believe that a 50 year old printer would have any value left on it. It was still maintained on deaf school’s books at that is why that value is being carried forward. But that’s one of the things that we are working with them now is to, to get a more updated list of what the inventory is and the age of each individual item they have. So it is something we’re working with them on. 

 

Lundstrum It sounds like you need to get a new accountant too. That sounds like something that should have been depreciated and long gone. 

 

Rogers I don’t. Yeah, I don’t know that– their deaf school’s bookkeeper. I don’t know because that, obviously, they’ve changed over a few times. So I don’t know how it’s happened, but we are working with him on that now. 

 

Lundstrum Okay. Fair enough. Any other questions or comments from the audience or questions from members? All right. What’s the will of the body? To accept? 

 

Hickey Motion to file.

 

Lundstrum A motion to file, Senator Hickey. All right, Mr. Spencer. Thank you. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our business for today. If you have anything else, take it outside. Do we need to vote on that? Yes, I believe we do need to vote on that. Members, do we move to accept this report as, as presented? So moved, Senator Davis. All in favor, aye. There we go. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, ladies. Have a good day.