Nassau audit: Many more phones than workers

Nassau County is paying the bill for thousands of telephone lines that it can't prove anyone is using, according to a new audit.

In a 20-month period, the county spent as much as $1.2 million on the lines, said County Comptroller George Maragos.

Maragos identified 4,600 "suspect or unverified lines" with no employees attached to them.

The Planning Department has 136 lines and 37 employees, while the Department of Social Services pays for 1,558 lines, but has 968 employees, said the audit, which covered the period from January 2010 to August.

An unknown number of phone lines are devoted to fax machines and alarms, the audit said. The audit also was unable to determine the effect of telephones with multiple lines.

Not counting the police department, Nassau has 10,000 telephone lines costing about $4.8 million a year. The county also has about 700 mobile phones costing $450,000, but auditors were not able to gather enough information to determine how they are being used. The police department and Nassau Community College do not fall under the IT department and were not included in the survey.

"There must be greater oversight and control of the . . . telephone billing," Maragos said in a statement.

The department announced a phone reduction initiative in 2010. However, monthly service charges increased from December 2009 through May, and more lines were added than deleted, the audit said.

Katie Grilli-Robles, a spokeswoman for County Executive Edward Mangano, said: "The administration has disconnected nearly 1,500 phone lines and 50 data lines in the past six months at a savings of nearly $250,000 a year for taxpayers. The county executive will continue to pursue all cost saving measures including a further reduction of phone and data lines."