Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Laptop Blackmarket

Schools' laptops are hot items:


"In the past three years, 490 laptops at public schools and district offices went missing, either stolen or lost, according to figures the district compiled through March."


This is old news to me. Ten or more years ago, I heard this was going on, and had been going on. How have they been dealing with this problem all of this time? Do they know where any of their inventory is? Someone finally got caught stealing lawn tractors only after a whistle blower jumped up and down.

At least it sounds like they can provide "up to date" reports of theft. At least they can't say they don't know that it is happening.

3 comments:

Thomas Vaughan said...

I was director of security for one of the largest hospital consortiums in Virginia and one of my responsibilities was inventory control and loss prevention.

It is not that difficult to implement accountability systems to prevent this. My biggest problem was the loss of surgical gowns. I sat behind the hospital laundry each night for a week and caught some employee back his truck up to the receiving dock and load them in his vehicle. At least he was smart enough to get them washed before he took them.

I guess the security folks are too busy harassing teachers who disagree with administration.

PRO On HCPS said...

My guess is that first they deal with things that effect their image, and second, they deal with issues that involves money going to an entity that is not in their graces.

Thousands of dollars can go overlooked in some cases, but they watch every nickle and dime in other cases.

PRO On HCPS said...

Maybe they are trying to make a display for the public to show how they are on top of things.

Some cynics would think that the problem is much worse than what is being told.

For an example of how different inter-system communication can be from public notices, check out the complete difference of the stated reasons for their actions in this county:

Gail McKinzio....