Summary

As of October 1995, the Energy Department (DOE) estimated that only $4.5 million worth of property was missing or could not be physically located at its Rocky Flats facility in Colorado. This amount is considerably lower than the $29.3 million cited in GAO's 1994 report (GAO/RCED-94-77) primarily because DOE authorized the contractor to write off about $20.8 million in missing or "unlocated" property from the property records. Generally, GAO found that DOE had improved property management at Rocky Flats. For instance, DOE has acquired a new property-tracking system more suited to property management. However, a major problem highlighted in GAO's 1994 report has yet to be addressed: A large percentage of the data in the site's property-tracking system are inaccurate.

GAO found that DOE: (1) determined that about $4.5 million of property was missing or could not be located at Rocky Flats as of October 1995; (2) authorized its contractor to write off about $13 million in unlocated property and about $7.8 million in property that had been missing under a previous contractor; (3) has improved property management at Rocky Flats by acquiring a new property tracking system, creating a property management division, and incorporating contract performance measures to address previously identified problems; (4) has fully implemented four of seven GAO recommendations to improve property management, and has partially implemented the other three; and (5) has not adequately addressed inaccuracies in the property tracking system's data, which prevents it from determining how much of DOE property has been lost or stolen.