Cellular Costs

Published March 11, 2020

Computerized procedure audits are periodically performed over different areas. This audit reviewed cellular costs, usage, and cell phone stipends. Computerized audit procedures can be utilized to extract vendor invoice information and relevant data from County systems. This allows the linkage of payroll information and vendor information, such as identifying employee stipends paid with and any associated cellular phone charges.

What was found:

Analyses of cellular charges (Verizon) indicated a number of underutilized phones and devices. Nine percent (9%) of phones and twenty-two percent (22%) of devices had no usage in the last three months of 2019. These underutilized services are estimated to be costing the County around $44 thousand per year. There are still more devices that have only nominal usage.

Some employees received a stipend and had a County phone contrary to policy. This was primarily due to communication issues and is estimated to cost the County around $2 thousand in 2019.

Departments are mostly using cost effective contract pricing for devices. Some departments could benefit from changing plans.

Policies governing mobile devices should be updated to reflect the risks to the County from the evolving technologies, privacy, and associated compliance risks that come with them. There are also management and business criteria that could be developed to control utilization.

What was recommended:

Recommendations included:

• updating the cell phone policy to address a number of additional areas;
• comparing stipend reports to employees who have County phones;
• periodically reviewing plans available to align with design, availability, usage and cost; and
• Addressing risk of device access to County information.

Recommendation update:

At the time of the 2025 update, five years after the report, recommendations to update policy and improve monitoring were drafted but still pending approval by the Board of County Commissioners.