ALBANY – An audit of the Newburgh
Town Police Department’s handling of evidence in its possession
– firearms, drug items, vehicles, and other personal items, found
that the department did not account for property room inventory adequately
due to inaccurate records.
The state comptroller’s office audit conducted for the period January
1, 2012 through September 26, 2013, found that of 376 high-risk property
items held by the department that were tested, 265 items, or 70 percent,
were not in the correct location, and of those, 51 items, or 14 percent,
were unaccounted for and missing from inventory, with no documentation
to indicate their disposition. The missing items included 17 money items
totaling over $63,400, 23 drug items, six firearms, four vehicles and
one washer of an unidentified type.
The town has some 92,000 items in the department’s possession.
The auditors’ recommendations included reviewing and updating property
room policies and procedures annually; monitoring the activity in the
property room including the assignment of physical inventory testing to
an individual who does not retain item custody; conducting routine and
unannounced inspections of the property room to ensure it is following
policies and procedures; assigning software user access based on job duties
and responsibilities; reviewing and updating the drug and firearm destruction
policy to ensure that the identification officer prepares and retains
detailed records identifying the items being destroyed; and continuing
to improve the inventory tracking and disposal process by clearly documenting
property movement to provide an audit trail.
The town’s response dated August 12, 2014 and signed by Acting Town
Supervisor Gilbert Piaquadio and Police Chief Michael Clancy, said department
personnel spot-checked certain property after reviewing the state’s
draft report, and “found that there were discrepancies in some paperwork
but that the property in each case we examined was located.”
The officials also said they were examining mentioned departmental policies
that were found to be defective in some ways and were already examining
the policies related to evidence and property.
“We’d like to note, however, that the department went through
the New York State DCJS process for receiving accreditation in 2010 and
2011,” Piaquadio and Clancy wrote. “During that time, all
our policies were examined by the Law Enforcement Accreditation Council.
Any recommendations the council made were followed and some policies were
modified.” Several new policies were also developed to meet the
accreditation standards, the town officials said.
