Financial Accounting for Local and State School Systems: 2014 Edition
NCES 2015347
April 2015

Appendix E—Criteria for Distinguishing Equipment From Supply Items — Selecting the Level of Control for Supplies and Equipment

School district managers carry great responsibilities for stewardship of the funds and property of the school district. They are responsible for tracking and periodically reporting on the condition of these financial and physical resources. A major decision in devising methods for carrying out these responsibilities is selecting the level of control to be applied to various kinds of supplies and equipment.

The level of control applied to any supply or equipment item can be thought of as the amount of time and effort spent in keeping track of the item and the amount of information kept about the condition and whereabouts of the item. The level of control applied to a supply or equipment item usually falls into one of three following broad categories:

  • Little or no control after purchase. Items in this category are of such little value that the costs of implementing procedures to safeguard them, monitor their use, or track their location and condition are not justifiable. Such items include staplers and wastebaskets.
  • Group control. Items in this category are of little individual value, but taken as a group are valuable enough to justify the cost of providing some type of control over their safety, use, location, and condition. Such items include chairs and school desks.
  • Individual control. Items in this category are of sufficient value to justify applying control measures to each individual item. Such items usually include all relatively expensive pieces of equipment, although the minimum value of such equipment may vary with the school district.

Selecting the level of control to apply to an item is a straightforward process. Often, certain kinds of control are required by law or standard practice. For example, a federal funding program might require that all items purchased from these funds be inventoried and reported on periodically. Similarly, some funding programs require that all items of a certain minimum value be inventoried and reported on periodically. The school district may decide on its own to inventory certain kinds of items, regardless of their funding source, simply because these items or the inventory information are valuable to the school district. The level of control can range from an annual inventory to daily check-out from and return to a central storage room or station. When applied to a given item, the level should be based on the relative importance of the item to the overall operation of the school district and is usually in direct proportion to the item's purchase, replacement, or repair cost.

It is important to note that deciding how to control an item is relevant not only to equipment but also to certain stocks of supplies. For example, any large stock of supplies—such as instruction supplies, food, or custodial supplies—should be periodically counted and checked for damage, deterioration, and pilferage. Thus, the level-of-control issue applies to all tangible goods of any significant value to the school district.

Top