One often hears that public servants give their time and effort to create a better community. Typically, one hears this from the politicians and bureaucrats who describe themselves as public servants. With all that dedication and attention, it’s not too much to hope that fewer of the goods purchased with taxpayer money would be lost. Sadly, even in a sophisticated community like Los Angeles, almost half of the items reviewed in an audit could not be located.
Reason has the details, in a post entitled, “L.A. Loses Deep-Fryer, 45 Percent of Items Purchased With Taxpayer Funds:
City Controller Wendy Greuel released an audit today showing that various City departments could not locate hundreds of items purchased with taxpayer funds, and that hundreds of other items had been sitting unopened or unused for up to 7 years …. “Of 254 items that we [Greuel’s team] attempted to locate, 115 were not where they should have been. While 56 items were ultimately found in the wrong location, 59 were unable to be located at a cost of $938,000.”
The press release from the controller’s office is available in pdf format.
It’s true that Los Angeles is a big place, but if a big place with ample means for recording and tracking publicly-financed items can’t locate half of them, we have reason to be concerned about happens in less resource-rich communities.
There’s a solution, of course, that would prevent so many taxpayer-purchased items from disappearing or winding up in the wrong location: purchase fewer items with taxpayer money. Government cannot lose items that it has never had.