Objective

To assess the extent of implementation, as of September 2025, of the seven recommendations included in our initial audit report, Capital Asset Management (2022-S-32).

About the Program

The Office of General Services’ (OGS or Office) provides essential support services for the operation of State government. Under Chapter 405 of the Laws of 1981 (Law), the State is responsible for establishing and maintaining custody of a comprehensive capital asset reporting system that allows for monitoring and reporting of the State’s capital assets. To improve controls, financial reporting, accountability, and operational efficiencies in managing these assets, the State established the Statewide Financial System Asset Management Module (SFS AM) to house and maintain capital asset information in a single master file, providing auditable information in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, as required by Law. SFS AM is used by State agency managers to effectively budget, account for, and control the acquisition and disposition of the State’s capital assets.

OGS considers tangible and intangible property (i.e., a resource lacking a physical substance, such as a copyright or patent) with a significant value that is used over a long period of time to be a capital asset. New York State has a significant investment in capital assets, totaling $120.6 billion as of March 31, 2025, with OGS’ reporting obligation at $20 billion. According to OGS officials, 55 State agencies use SFS AM and are required to report their capital assets to OGS.

The Bureau of Capital Assets (BCA) within OGS acts as a service bureau to State agencies by monitoring and coordinating capital asset inputs to SFS AM, assisting agencies in the management and maintenance of their asset data in SFS AM, and distributing reports. In addition, the Bureau of State Asset and Land Management assists in managing land capital assets by maintaining the State Land Inventory, dispositions of State land, the transfers of jurisdiction of State land from one State agency to another, and the declarations of surplus buildings and improvements. Each State agency has a Property Control Manager responsible for gathering, entering, and maintaining accurate information within SFS AM related to their capital asset activity.

According to the Law, OGS may prescribe the elements, extent, and format of the information included in the inventory and the procedures for capital asset information collection, presentation, and verification to provide an accurate and current inventory of capital assets. The Law further states that each State agency must deliver this information to OGS as requested for the establishment and maintenance of the capital asset inventory, and permits OGS to make physical and record inspections as deemed necessary. Capital asset inventory is maintained on a continuous basis, with each State agency submitting additions, deletions, and modifications electronically via SFS AM. Once submitted, all capital assets are reviewed and approved by BCA. To maintain accuracy, each State agency is responsible for performing a physical inventory of its capital assets on a biennial basis (i.e., every 2 years) and submitting a biennial report. Any resulting changes must be submitted by the agency in SFS AM to BCA on a timely basis. Further, each State agency is asked to annually certify the value of its capital assets in SFS AM on March 31 as part of the State’s annual statewide financial statement audit. To verify the accuracy of the capital asset inventory data maintained in SFS AM, BCA conducts periodic physical inventory site visits (site visits) to State agencies.

The objective of our initial audit, issued on February 12, 2024 and covering the period from April 2020 through May 2023, was to determine whether OGS was adequately overseeing selected State agencies and related entities to ensure that they had proper inventory controls in place to safeguard assets and that they were properly reporting capital assets. The audit found that BCA was not adequately overseeing capital assets reported by State agencies to ensure that these agencies were properly and timely reporting capital assets. For example, BCA did not establish adequate policies and procedures for its site visit process and was not conducting site visits on a regular or consistent basis. We found 224 capital assets went unreported in SFS AM, including forklifts and dump trucks, and 16% of capital assets had incorrect or missing data in SFS AM. We also found BCA could not ensure the quality or completeness of the capital asset data in SFS AM or that every State agency required to report its capital assets to BCA was actually reporting for all sites. For example, we found 5,461 instances of properties where the address was marked as State-owned in tax parcel data but did not appear in the SFS AM data. Finally, BCA officials were not taking timely, proactive actions such as running reports from SFS AM or performing analysis on SFS AM data to provide OGS with valuable data to monitor and identify potential data inaccuracies or trends.

Key Findings

OGS has made progress in addressing the issues we identified in the initial audit report. Of the report’s seven recommendations, five have been implemented and two have been partially implemented.

Key Recommendation

OGS officials are requested, but not required, to provide information about any actions planned to address the unresolved issues discussed in this follow-up within 30 days of the report’s issuance.