Editorial: Employees don’t follow guidelines

Monday, Nov. 26, 2001 | 8:50 a.m.

An audit has found that Clark County School District employees failed to follow regulations or kept sloppy records when using purchasing cards for $17 million in spending last year. As the Sun's Terry Webster reported last week, the cards, which work like credit cards, are used to make myriad purchases for district-related business, ranging from paper clips to airline tickets. The reasoning for the cards makes sense: to get rid of bureaucratic red tape for purchases less than $500, which in turn makes it easier for employees to get supplies faster.

The problem at the school district, though, is that there isn't enough oversight of the purchasing card program to make sure abuses don't happen. The most frequent violation of the school district's guidelines for the card was employees going over the $500 limit. The audit by Kafoury, Armstrong & Co. didn't find any misuse of the cards, but at the same time the audit report noted that there needs to be better controls in place to prevent the possibility of misappropriations. The principals at each school should do a better job of monitoring the use of the card and be held accountable if employees don't follow the rules. Along with not following guidelines, the auditors also discovered that last year 281 of the 1,521 cards that were issued were reported either lost or stolen. The auditors recommend taking the cards away from employees who lose cards or don' t follow procedures, which is the very least they should do.

Whether it's in business or in government, there is nothing more maddening than having to fill out lots of paperwork for routine purchases, forms that can add days -- even weeks -- to getting needed supplies. A purchasing card does have its advantages to increase the efficiency and improve the performance of school employees. But at the same time the school district needs to stay on top of the program and make sure employees are following all of the guidelines so that public funds aren't abused.