This week I spent Wednesday in Topeka as a member of the Joint Committee on Legislative Post Audit. As you recall, two years ago I was appointed to this committee along with 4 other House members and 5 Senators.
We are a team that receives a formal briefing on the audits of a variety of state government agencies and programs. The Legislators, Administration and the Governor, or the Attorney General, or any cabinet secretary can request audits. Law requires some annual audits as well.
This week we heard the reports that addressed “Computer Security Audit”, which was to determine whether state agencies effectively remove software and agency data from surplus computers.
Under State law, agencies can dispose of outdated computer equipment through the State Surplus Property Program that is operated by the Department of Administration. The equipment is first made available to organizations that are eligible to participate in a similar federal program, and after 30 days they are offered for sale to the general public. (This includes all excess equipment that has been used by the state.)
Although the staff that operates the Surplus Property Program checks the computer equipment for information before offering it up for sale, it’s the agency’s responsibility to ensure that all property software and agency data have been removed before it disposes of the equipment.
How well did we do? The answer in brief is that agencies often do not remove data from computers that are sold to the public. The auditors with their computer experts obtained 15 computers that had been turned in by 4 different agencies and found data on 10 of them. Seven were found to contain confidential documents including thousands of social security numbers. Sensitive agency information was found as well as some copyrighted music files.
It appeared that data weren’t properly removed because the agencies lacked policies, relied on the Surplus Property staff to remove the data, or did a poor job of keeping track of which of their computers had been processed and those which hadn’t.
As the custodians of State data, agencies are responsible for removing the data from their computers before they make them available to the public. Our computer technicians were able to recover data even if the data had been erased. So when you go to “Delete and send to the trash bin” and then empty the trash bin the data is actually still there. Good computer geeks can recover everything.
What is the accepted method of clearing a hard drive? #1. Physically destroying the hard drive, #2 Demagnetizing the disk, #3 using specialized software to overwrite the hard drive multiple times. (3 times).
In the 12 months prior to April 30th 08, the state disposed of approximately 600 computers. As of fiscal 2008 State agencies owned more than 80,000 computers. I am confident that in less than 30 days all agencies and users will be aware of the proper procedures required for disposal of their computers.
The second audit we heard was titled K-12 Education: School District’s use of Additional State Funding. In 2005 and 2006, the legislature changed the school finance formula to phase in additional funding over four years. Over the past three years, districts received a cumulative total of more than $1.5 billion in new funding because of the changes t the school finance formula.
The school districts of Kansas have received a cumulative total of $1.7 billion in additional funding from all sources (over and above the 2004-05 funding levels) for the past three years. In all, 90% of the new funding brought about by the funding formula changes came from the basic operating aid (including the base state aid per pupil, low enrollment and high enrollment weightings, at risk funding and districts local option budgets.
More than 70% of districts’ increased spending between 04-05 and 06-07 was for student instruction. About 29% was for support services, administration, maintenance, and transportation. Overall reading and math student outcomes continue to show improvement for all grade levels. The scores have been improving for years and continue to improve following the funding increase.
73% of the superintendents told us they added or expanded all-day kindergarten. 67% told us they added or expanded before-school and after-school programs, 61% reported they spent some of the new money on technology, 53% said they added or expanded four-year-at-risk programs.
The audit did not report the total that includes the existing funds received by the individual districts and we have requested that information to be delivered within the week. We did not accept the report because we felt it was incomplete without having the total funding amounts posted. The report include just the increases.
The local schools cumulative total of additional money received for 05-06, 06-07, and 07-08 over and above the 04-05 funding is:
El Dorado USD 490; $6,671,320
Flinthills USD 492; $851,139
Augusta USD 402; $6,429,076
Circle USD 375; $3,859,734
Remington-Whitewater USD 206; $1,344,817
Wichita USD 259; $224,915,458.
Remember the above amounts are the additional funding required by the lawsuit as interpreted by the Kansas Supreme Court. This amount will most likely stay there forever.
Is this money well spent? I believe that in most cases, yes it certainly was I think you should ask your local school boards what they think.
The complete audits are available at, www.lslegislature.org/postaudit, or by calling 785-296-3792. I have a few extra copies that I can make available as well.
I consider it an honor and privilege to represent you in Topeka. If you have questions feel free to contact me at home, 1115 Rim Rock Road, El Dorado 67042, phone 316-321-2087. My email is johng@carlisleinc.net, or website www.johngrange.net. Thanks again, John
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