Fort Worth

City of Fort Worth Paying $130,093 for 504 Unused Cell Phones: Audit

Audit also found city paid for unused landlines

The city of Fort Worth is paying $130,093 for 504 cell phones and mobile devices it did not use, according to an audit.

A report, by the city’s internal audit department, also found the city paid $28,242 for landline phones at nine locations that “no longer had city facilities or functions.”

The audit found 968 cell phones and mobile devices that were assigned to names like “police police” or “water water” and not specifically to a city employee.

The review faulted the city for not having any written procedures aimed at managing mobile devices.

The city budgets for 6,090 landline phones and 5,049 cell phones and mobile devices, the audit said.

The report did not break down which city departments had the most unused cell phones but noted the police department had more than double the number of mobile devices than any other city department with 2,096. The water department had the second highest with 771.

In fiscal year 2017, the city exceeded its cell phone budget by 27 percent, the audit said.

The report also said the city paid for pagers which were no longer used.

Auditors made a number of suggestions on how the city can improve its management of mobile devices.

The city’s chief technology officer, Kevin Gunn, agreed with most of them.

City council member Cary Moon, chair of the audit committee, said such reviews pay for themselves in savings.

"We knew there were some inefficiences there," he said. "We are going to correct it."

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