APS Fleet Management "wide open to theft"

In report by KRQE, link, we find that APS' Fleet Management Department doesn't even know how many vehicles it is responsible for "because a complete inventory has never been done."

"A new report from APS auditors suggests the door is still wide open for thieves at the department."

• The facility is not secure.
• People who were fired from the district years ago still have access.
• Unauthorized people... were also given the freedom to wander the facility.
• ... high dollar items are not locked up ... a $14,000 dollar precision wood saw was left outside ...
• Work on the APS fleet is not properly documented ...
• Fleet maintenance has no way of knowing if parts ordered actually went into APS vehicles ...
• There are not adequate controls to make sure employees are not filling up their own cars at district gas pumps.
• A $1,400 dollar generator vanished, and the theft was never reported to the APS Police Department.
• Fleet drivers have racked up $1,500 dollars in fines and late fees for tickets issued.

APS Board Member Paula Maes spoke in defense of the board's failure to provide adequate standards and accountability for the administration of the public's trust and treasure by the leadership of the APS;

"We are being more proactive in trying to find these."
"Any big organization is going to have these problems."

Not true. Any organization of any size, which has adequate standards of conduct and competence and which has honest accountability to those standards, does not have these problems.

According to KRQE,

Maes said something needs to be done and fast. "We need to find out what the problem is, and we need to fix the problem so that it doesn't happen again."

These problems could be addressed overnight if APS commissioned a district wide standards and accountability audit and then addressed the findings.

There never will be such an audit because Maes, and the rest of the leadership of the APS "... will never agree to any audit that individually identifies ..." corrupt and incompetent administrators or board members.

One cannot end corruption and incompetence without exposing the corrupt and the incompetent. Because Maes et al, are unwilling to allow heads to roll even for the most egregious corruption and incompetence, the corruption and incompetence will never be exposed and they will never end. Their continuing suppression of evidence of felony criminal misconduct by senior APS administrators and board members in the APS Police Department, sends a pretty clear message that covering people's asses takes precedence over holding anyone honestly accountable for their conduct and competence.




photo Mark Bralley