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YELLOW SHEET Office of the State Auditor of Missouri |
September 17, 2001
Report No. 2001-85
Better monitoring of state employee cellular
telephone
use could reduce costs
State officials spent about $2.5
million on cellular telephone costs in fiscal year 2000. This audit examined
how effectively state agencies manage cellular telephone use and found no
assurance that employees are enrolled in the most cost-effective plans or that telephones
are fully utilized. �Auditors reviewed
cellular telephone policies at 16 state agencies and made detailed reviews of
billing plans at seven organizations within four agencies. �The following highlights the findings:
Employee cellular
telephone plans not matched to usage
Audit tests showed that some
employee cellular telephone plans did not match their usage patterns.� Agencies would place employees in light-,
medium- or heavy-user plans, which each designated a number of �free� minutes per
month.� But auditors found several
instances of employees using the telephone beyond their plan, which resulted in
significant additional charges.� Almost
half the cellular telephone costs paid by the seven organizations in this audit
were not covered by the individuals� plan.�
In some cases,� state officials paid
double what they would have if they had upgraded an employee to a higher -use
plan. (See page 3)
One division did not know who
used cellular telephones
Users of 16 telephones at one
division could not be identified by organization officials.� This finding prompted the division to
suspend the contracts on these telephones which cost $1,751 in fiscal year 2000.� In addition, $7,126 was spent on telephones
that were used one-half the time or less.�
(See page 5)
Telephone billing errors go
unquestioned
Audit tests found
many instances of agency personnel not noting incorrect charges, paying bills
late and misclassifying telephone expenses. �For example, agency officials paid and did not question bills
without call-by-call data.� In addition,
one organization had a $21,601 delinquent balance for cellular telephone use.� (See page 9)
No assurance all personal
calls are reimbursed
Agency personnel do not always
review bills for personal calls or require employees to reimburse the state for
such use.� One organization relied on
employees to verbally note personal calls and reimburse the agency.� Another organization sent bills to employees
for reimbursement, but the personal calls were not identified on the bill,
which made reconciliation difficult.� (See page 11)
Some agencies lack guidance on
telephone management
Nine of the 16 state agencies in
this audit did not have guidance
to manage telephone use and four of the remaining seven had inadequate
policies.� Inadequate policies included one
agency that only addressed reimbursing employees for business calls made on
personal cellular telephones.� In
addition, only two of the 16 agencies had performed an internal review �of cellular
telephones. (See
page 13)
Agency officials unaware of
extensive local service provider use
Agency officials can purchase cellular telephones from four statewide contractors or contract on their own when costs are expected to total less than $25,000.� However, Office of Administration officials, charged with monitoring expenditures statewide, were not aware the extent agencies used local providers.� One agency paid up to 18 different cellular telephone vendors in 1 year.� Making it too easy for agencies to contract with local providers has negated the effectiveness of statewide contracts.� (See page 16)
