The Albuquerque Police Department is tweaking some of its practices after a city audit found the department was unable to track its own ammunition.
The report, released last month through the city’s Office of Internal Audit, faulted the police department officials for ultimately not knowing the total amount of its ammunition on hand.
Conducted on the request of Albuquerque City Councilor Diane Gibson, the audit also notes that ammunition can be bought and sold on the street.
This adds up to “inconsistent practices for tracking ammunition and various opportunities for improvement.” The audit notes that properly tracking ammunition is “critical to controlling cost, operational efficiency and mission readiness.”
From the audit:
Although APD has an extensive supply of ammunition, it has not established and implemented department-wide policies and procedures for purchasing, tracking and managing ammunition inventory.
Another issue raised involves the police department’s lack of a central location for storing ammunition. Instead, APD stores bullets at 11 locations throughout the city.
The audit found inventory discrepancies in nine of the locations.
While the audit recommends that the police department decrease the amount of locations where it stores bullets, the police department responded that bullets can be safely stored in multiple locations.
“There is not a single storage location which can accommodate the amount of inventory maintained by APD,” the police department wrote in a formal response included in the audit. “Storing in one location creates a serious public safety as to the potential for theft or even a threat of destruction.”
Still, the department wrote that it will soon start storing bullets in just three locations, which they said will “facilitate short term storage of ammunition.”
The police department also plans to use identical ammunition tracking forms and conduct quarterly inventories.
Read the full city audit below:
Final Special Audit Report #15-106, Albuquerque Police Department Purchase & Tracking of Ammunition.pdf by New Mexico Political Report
