Vancouver reaffirms its commitment to tracking procedures along with the release of State Audit

Vancouver reaffirms its commitment to tracking procedures along with the release of State Audit

October 17, 2024

We appreciate the Office of the Washington State Auditor's help identifying opportunities for improvement in our internal controls within Vancouver's Police Department (VPD). We take these findings and the public's trust in us to monitor, track and safeguard the essential work tools we use to keep the community safe seriously.

As part of the state's annual citywide audit cycle for the City, VPD was due for their annual Accountability Audit for the period of Jan. 1-Dec. 31, 2023. The area selected for this audit cycle was "small and attractive assets," including phones, firearms, tactical and safety equipment, cameras, radios and body cameras. The auditor issued a finding surrounding oversight for the tracking and disposition of small and attractive assets in the Police Department. This finding highlighted six firearms listed in VPD's inventory that could not be located during the audit in 2023 but have been located since the audit.

At the time of the audit, VPD was already reconciling the department's firearm inventory and established that the "uncounted" firearms were and continue to be in the possession of their legal owners or another agency.

To assist VPD, they ran a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) trace to establish the status of the respective firearms. The ATF trace found that four of the firearms were issued to VPD and two were issued to the Clark County Sheriff's Office (CCSO).

The internal research found that the Vancouver Police Officers Guild (VPOG) legally purchased these four handguns as retirement gifts for retired Vancouver Police officers. All the retired officers who received these firearms confirmed that they still possessed the firearms purchased for them by the VPOG.

The ATF trace showed the two remaining firearms were issued to CCSO. These rifles were used by the multijurisdictional Honor Guard. They were likely entered in error into VPD's inventory system when they were used in the early 2000s.

The leading cause of unaccounted firearms can be traced to human error and the system used to track them. In addition to fully accounting for the weapons referenced in the findings, VPD took the following actions to ensure we have the appropriate systems in place to ensure this doesn't happen again:

• VPD implemented an updated firearms inventory procedure with the help of the city's internal auditor. Per the State Auditor's recommendation, the updated process includes separate individuals managing each system.

• Twice a year, inventory audits will be conducted by VPD to compare and reconcile inventories. Discrepancies will be researched and resolved.

• The City is in the process of migrating firearms to an inventory management system that doesn't combine our assets with other agencies.

As an organization, we value continual improvement, and both internal and external audits highlight areas for improvement in process and internal controls. We are confident that the updated procedures we have in place will avoid any inventory discrepancies in the future.

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