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County's intranet. While the County establishes written policies and procedures, the manual is <br />inadequate and outdated, and should be periodically reviewed and updated at least annually, or <br />as needed, to reflect changes in actual processes and tasks. <br />To maintain appropriate controls and comply with best practice, the County of Hawai "i <br />Department of Finance established the "Inventory Procedures Manual" which provides guidance <br />to the departments. This guidance includes responsibilities for maintaining and submitting <br />inventory, criteria for placing equipment on inventory records, tagging, annual inventory count, <br />disposals, transfers, inventory adjustments, maintenance of equipment, material, and supplies <br />inventories, and legal references. <br />Highway management did not consistently follow or enforce their policies and procedures to <br />maintain an effective and efficient internal control system to properly account and safeguard <br />their inventory. As a result, numerous discrepancies were not resolved timely and policies and <br />procedures did not provide adequate guidance to Highway Maintenance staff. In addition, <br />employees responsible for inventory management are not receiving adequate training to <br />completely understand the risks, expectations, or the responsibilities of inventory management. <br />Inventory policies and procedures should be reinforced with consistent training. <br />To ensure all County policies and procedures are followed, staff responsible for inventory must <br />review numerous memorandums. There is currently no consolidated source that includes all <br />current and applicable inventory rules. By having to rely on numerous memorandums, an <br />outdated and incomplete inventory procedures manual, and a lack of consistent inventory <br />training, the risk of not detecting irregularities and resolving discrepancies timely greatly <br />increases. Since it is the Department of Finance's intent to use the Inventory Procedures <br />Manual as its official inventory policies and procedures, it must make this clear to staff <br />responsible for inventory management, review and update the manual annually, and provide on- <br />going training to County departments. <br />DPW Highway Maintenance Division Inventory Management: Audit Results 121 <br />