Auditors find inventory, oversight failures at Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services

Legislative auditors told the Legislative Audit Committee on 2025-09-25 that a systematic performance audit of the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services (DABS) revealed persistent inventory variances, gaps in financial controls and a “culture of noncompliance” in operations, and the committee voted unanimously to refer the audit to the Economic and Community Development Appropriations Subcommittee as lead and the Business and Labor Interim Committee as the review committee.

The auditors said they reviewed the whole agency, then focused on operational risk areas including retail stores, the statewide warehouse and the department’s enterprise inventory system. Deputy Auditor General Brian Dean said their report shows repeated findings since 2010 and problems with inventory controls, IT systems and oversight that management has not fully corrected. Auditor Rusty Foster and team member Abby Maccabee joined the presentation.

Why it matters: DABS operates a retail enterprise that auditors said generated approximately $500 million in annual sales and returns large sums to the state general fund. Weak inventory controls…