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Finance committee adopts electronic-asset inventory procedure after clarifying scope
Summary
Wilson County’s finance committee approved a new asset-inventory procedure to tag and track laptops, desktops, phones and similar electronics costing more than $300, while directing staff to clarify which departments (sheriff, elections, road, schools) remain on separate systems and to add installer sign-off to the intake form.
Wilson County’s finance committee voted unanimously to adopt a countywide procedure to track electronic assets after staff clarified how the rule will interact with departments that run their own systems.
The county will require departments to account for items that cost more than $300 and have a useful life of more than one year, including laptops, desktop computers, monitors, tablets and phones. The finance director said each item will receive a scannable tag and be entered into an asset-inventory system; the ordering department head will sign an installation-of-hardware form verifying make, model and serial number.
The change is intended to improve accountability for easily removed or resold equipment. “When the computer is received, a scannable tag will be attached… and the equipment will be added to the inventory tracking system by the IT department,” the director said during the presentation.
Committee members asked for clearer language about which units are covered. The director and staff identified four large county departments that currently use their own inventory platforms—the sheriff’s office, the emergency management agency (WEMA), the elections office and the road department—and said those systems (examples referenced in the discussion included Asset Panda and Operative IQ) are not being replaced by the county’s policy. The finance director said staff will reach out to those departments to explore joint audit options and will add a line specifying which departments the policy applies to.
The committee also requested that the IT representative who installs equipment sign the installation form in addition to the department head; staff agreed to update the form accordingly. The proposed process requires departments to notify supervisors immediately if an asset assigned to an employee goes missing, to file a police report in the jurisdiction where the asset was believed to be stolen, and to provide a copy of that report to finance so the item can be flagged in the inventory system.
The committee’s motion to accept the process (with the discussed edits) passed on a voice vote. Staff said disposal and surplus forms will continue to be submitted to finance and that departments will perform periodic audits—at least once a year during budget preparation—to reconcile assigned assets.
