Audit Objective
Did Academy of Health Sciences Charter School (School) officials appropriately inventory, track and safeguard information technology (IT) assets?
Audit Period
July 1, 2024 – July 2, 2026
Understanding the Audit Area
School officials should appropriately inventory, track and safeguard a school’s IT assets to help officials account for a school’s investment in technology assets, protect the information stored on those assets and reduce the risk of loss, theft or misuse.
The cost of the School’s IT assets purchased from July 1, 2024 through April 30, 2026 totaled approximately $48,000.
Audit Summary
School officials did not appropriately inventory, track and safeguard IT assets. Because the Board of Trustees (Board) did not adopt an IT asset inventory policy, School officials lacked detailed guidance for maintaining the IT asset inventory listing. As a result, the Chief Administrative Officer and Operations Coordinator (Coordinator) did not maintain a complete, accurate and up-to-date inventory listing to properly account for IT assets. The lack of an adequate inventory listing and physical safeguards exposes IT assets to loss, theft or misuse.
The School’s IT asset inventory listing, containing approximately 1,200 IT assets, did not include all IT assets and did not contain adequate information to sufficiently track or identify the School’s IT assets. Specifically, the listing had incomplete or inaccurate information and did not contain certain asset-identifying information, such as an asset’s serial number, make and model, location, employee or room assigned, acquisition date, cost and disposal date. In addition, although the Chief Administrative Officer and Coordinator told us that they conducted periodic and annual physical inventory counts, they could not provide documentation to support that IT assets were properly accounted for and safeguarded.
During our walkthrough of the School building and follow-up with School officials, we determined that of the 45 IT assets tested, 13 IT assets costing approximately $4,020, including Chromebooks and laptops, could not be located.
The report includes three recommendations that, if implemented, will improve the School’s IT asset management practices to properly account for and safeguard IT assets. Although School officials generally agreed with our recommendations and indicated they initiated corrective action, they disagreed with certain aspects of our findings. Appendix C includes our comments on issues raised in the School’s response.
This audit was conducted pursuant to Article V, Section 1 of the State Constitution and the Office of the New York State Comptroller’s (OSC’s) authority as set forth in Section 2854 of the New York State Education Law, as amended by Chapter 56 of the Laws of 2014. The audit’s methodology and standards are included in Appendix D.
The Board has the responsibility to initiate corrective action. The Board is encouraged to prepare a written corrective action plan (CAP) that addresses the recommendations in this report and forward it to OSC within 90 days. For more information on preparing and filing the CAP, please refer to the OSC brochure, Responding to an OSC Audit Report, which was provided with the draft audit report. The Board is encouraged to make the CAP available for public review.