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The County's fixed asset system provides a tool for controlling property acquisition, deletion, and transfers of equipment, structures and improvements as required by Section 24051 of the Government Code. Per County policy, the Chief Financial Officer (in his responsibility as Auditor-Controller) is required to prepare and provide departments a print out of their existing capital asset listing to be certified and returned to the Auditor-Controller by June 30 of the same fiscal year. For accounting purposes, the County uses a $5,000 threshold for equipment and software capital assets. Under the "Accountability for Non-Capitalizable Assets" policy, department heads have the responsibility for assets under the $5,000 threshold.
Fixed asset records for the County, as of March 31, 2019, were provided to department heads to complete and certify their records, and be returned in June 2019. Upon receiving the certifications, there were many requests for deletion from the property records. Policy allows for two ways to achieve the deletion from property records: (1) property was surplussed and sold (or disposed of) through the County Purchasing Manager who provides documentation to the Accounting Division of the Department of Financial Services, or (2) letter to the Board of Supervisors for approval for deletion from property records.
The items in Attachment A, requests for deletion from the fixed asset records, have been submitted for deletion by the respective department heads.
Other than a Book Sorter Machine from the Library, that had a book value on the accounting records of $242,828, all other requested items for deletion were fully depreciated. The book sorter was dismantled and removed as part of the acquisition of the new book sorter purchase by the vendor Lyngsoe. Based on discussion with Library fiscal staff, the library has found that based on its operational demands, the useful life of a book sorter is generally 10 years; however, the book sorter was originally captured in the accounting records with an estimated 25 year life. The Library had intended for this outcome in the contract for acquisition of a new book sorter to have the vendor trade-in the old sorter and thus removal from the property records is necessary to complete this process.
The majority of the other assets requested for deletion are fully depreciated software or equipment that was not located at the time of the fixed asset inventory. Of note are a few additional items:
- Asset 247-771 - The Crest Property Tax Software was replaced in 2007/2008 by the Megabyte property tax system. Thus, though the original cost was large at $83,781, this system has been obsolete and de-activated for a number of years.
- Asset 124-1182 - The Health & Human Services department spent $1,114,755 in original cost on Office Landscaping (cubicles, furniture, etc.) in 2006/2007 when the building was acquired. Due to the large size of the acquisition, state and federal cost plan rules required capitalization and depreciation. However, due to the modular nature of cubicles and numerous renovations and modifications over the years, HHSA is requesting removal from the fixed asset records now that all depreciable value has been recaptured from eligible funding sources. This removal is consistent with other departments that do not track individual cubicle parts and pieces due to the administrative burden entailed.
- Assets 247-3866, 247-3867, and 247-3868 - The Library department E-wasted 3 Selfcheck Kiosk machines (original cost and thus due to the process of not being surplussed by procurement, these were still on the property records. Financial Services is re-evaluating the process to ensure procurement is included in the process for e-wasted items to ensure property records remain accurate.
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