Use of Equitable Sharing Assets by the Police Department of the City of Albany, New York
Audit Report No. GR-70-05-007
January 2005
Office of the Inspector General
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, completed an audit of the use of DOJ equitable sharing assets by the Police Department of the City of Albany, New York (Police Department). We performed the audit at the request of the DOJ Criminal Division, Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section (AFMLS). The audit covered the period of January 1, 2001, through July 31, 2004, during which the Police Department received $56,096 in DOJ equitable sharing cash and $10,975 in property, for participating in investigations leading to forfeiture. We reviewed the Police Department's accountability and use of equitable sharing assets and found that the Police Department did not fully comply with DOJ equitable sharing guidelines. The Police Department did not account separately for federal forfeitures, but instead commingled these funds with other forfeiture funds in a single account for accounting and banking purposes. We question the total amount of $56,096 in DOJ equitable sharing cash the Police Department received during the audit period because unallowable or unsupported expenditures exceeded $56,096, and we could not identify specific expenditures made with DOJ equitable sharing cash from expenditures made with other forfeiture funds due to the commingling of the funds.1 We found the Police Department:
Our audit results are discussed in greater detail in the Findings and Recommendations section of the report. The audit objectives, scope, and methodology appear in Appendix I. We discussed the results of our audit with Police Department officials and have included their comments in the report, as applicable. In addition, we requested from the Police Department a response to our draft audit report. Footnotes
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