An Audit Report on Records Center Services at the Library and Archives Commission
July 2010
Report Number 10-032
Overall Conclusion
The Library and Archives Commission (Commission) has adequate controls and processes to help ensure that sensitive and confidential state records stored through its Records Center are protected. In addition, the Commission's billing processes adequately ensure that the Commission accurately charges agencies for the services provided in accordance with the published fee schedule.
However, the Commission did not have cost-recovery schedules that supported the fees its Records Center charged for providing storage services to agencies for fiscal years 2009 and 2010. In addition, the Commission should develop performance targets to assess whether state records are destroyed in a timely manner, and it should improve how it manages its inventory of state records by tracking all records in its automated system.
Texas Government Code, Section 441.017, requires the Commission to recover all direct and indirect costs for providing records storage services to state agencies and local governments. A comparison of storage fees charged by similar facilities in other states and private vendors indicates that the Commission's storage fees are among the lowest (see Appendix 2).
The Commission has adequate controls and processes in place to help ensure that sensitive and confidential information in state records stored in the Records Center is protected until the records are destroyed. The Commission also has policies and procedures regarding its records destruction process; however, it has not developed performance targets that it could use to assess whether state records scheduled for destruction are destroyed in a timely manner. In addition, the Commission has not implemented adequate controls over access and data entry for the database used to track and maintain the status of records scheduled to be destroyed. Auditors identified multiple instances of inaccurate and incomplete destruction information within that database.
In addition, the Commission's processes allow it to accurately track its inventory of most state records. However, 21.9 percent of the Commission's inventory is tracked using a manual system. Until all records are tracked in the Commission's automated tracking system, the Commission is unable to generate an accurate and complete inventory report. The Commission should also strengthen its tracking of its disaster recovery records inventory.
According to the Commission, its total capacity for hard-copy record storage is 388,096 cubic feet. As of December 31, 2009, the Records Center was storing 343,228 cubic feet of hard-copy records. Although the Commission encourages agencies to store records electronically, it should seek opportunities to provide electronic storage services. Electronic storage would allow the Commission to store more records in its current space and may make the records easier to retrieve.
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