Comptroller: Many DOE Tablets, Computers Missing, Unopened

By: Lindsey Christ Text size: +-

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The Department of Education has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on computers and tablets over the past few years, but a new audit by the city comptroller says many of those devices are missing or are sitting unopened. NY1's Lindsey Christ filed the following report.

Computers and tablets seem to have a habit of disappearing, off desks in schools and out of the Department of Education's record books.

'This is very troubling when parents expect every computer, every tool to be used in the classroom for their children,' said City Comptroller Scott Stringer.

In an investigation of nine schools, plus the Department of Education's central office, the city comptroller's office says it was unable to locate more than 1,800 computers and 250 tablets, even after working with the Department of Education to try to find the missing hardware.

'We only looked at 10 locations, and this is the mess we found. But there's 2,000 locations,' Stringer said. 'Even at Tweed, Department of Education headquarters, they couldn't account for 600 computers right in the middle of the main headquarters. There's something wrong.'

The Department of Education does not use a central database to keep track of computers and tablets, but Stringer says there is already a system in place that could easily be used to do that. In its formal response to his audit, though, the Department of Education says it believes creating a central inventory system is neither cost effective nor practical.

'We have a right as taxpayers to make sure that every computer, every tablet is accounted for,' Stringer said.

It's not just the missing hardware. Auditors say they discovered 394 computers and tablets still in their packaging, some bought back in 2011. At one school, one-quarter of the devices purchased in recent years remained unopened.

'The notion that we can't account for thousands of computers, and that we found, our auditors found unpacked computers that should be in the classroom, points to a very serious issue,' Stringer said.

The Department of Education says it has asked all schools to update inventory lists in an effort to locate missing and unopened devices.

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