Hundreds of printers, 3,000 cartridges, and truckloads of other paraphernalia in undisclosed warehouses, all leading to millions of wasted dollars. It would be fitting to assume this report is about a counterfeit money production crime ring. Instead, it’s about the LA County Department of Children and Family Services, led by apparent shopaholics with a knack for squandering taxpayers’ money.
According to the Los Angeles Times (August 9, 2007), an audit has uncovered that “Los Angeles County’s child welfare agency wasted more than $1 million on unnecessary or overpriced equipment and failed to adequately keep track of hundreds of thousands of dollars more in supplies.” Despite LA County’s tarnished financial records, the magnitude of this agency’s overzealous buying habits is alarming. “I think it’s probably the most significant departure from purchasing practices that I’ve ever seen,” said the auditor-controller, whose career with the county has spanned over 37 years.
In the best case scenario, we could speculate that some employees of the child welfare agency had amnesia and continually forgot about all of their purchases. The evidence, however, tells a different story. “The report said the deficiencies could have resulted in misappropriation of county property and said procurement staff misled auditors to conceal storage locations that housed unneeded or obsolete supplies.” Furthermore, “(a)uditors also said they discovered several storage facilities that procurement staff ha[d] not disclosed when asked.” Since the supplies were treated like smuggled drugs or counterfeit money, it’s safe to say that the procurement staff was aware that their excessive spending was not acceptable.
The hoard of supplies is mind-boggling. “Auditors singled out for particular criticism a purchase by the department last year of more than 3,000 printer cartridges for $800,000… enough to last the agency three years, even though the cartridges have a shelf life of two years.” Within that month, “the department paid $450,000 to buy more of the same cartridges at a 15% higher price” Additionally, “cartridge purchases over the next nine months cost the county $150,000.” That means the agency now has “4,500 cartridges due to expire before they can be used.”
The shoppers may have been crazy about cartridges, but they also had an affinity for gift cards: “The cards, which can be used at stores such as Target and Wal-Mart, are typically distributed to children and foster parents to buy food, clothing and other household necessities.” Unfortunately, “$115,000 of the $700,000 gift card purchases” could not be documented. In addition, “[a]mong the obsolete items the department was keeping in storage [were] more than 1,000 outdated legal reference books; hundreds of printers…; 120 office cabinets that each cost more than $700; and 70 unused digital cameras.” An LA County garage sale should be in the works with these figures.
In all seriousness, the purchasing practices were purely lazy, irresponsible, and improvident. These spendthrifts wasted millions of taxpayers’ dollars aimed to aid children and families. It’s time for this procurement staff’s shopping spree to end.
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