Report: Ohio at risk for salt, sand theft

August 1, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

The Ohio Department of Transportation is vulnerable to theft of materials such as salt and sand, a report from the Inspector General Thomas P. Charles’ office shows.

The report, which was released this week, said inventory imbalances are a big problem in the winter because ODOT doesn’t use scales and employees estimate bulk materials such as road salt.

To fix any imbalances in inventories, workers do another visual estimate and adjust the records, the report said.

The inspector general’s office says employees could be skimming some of the salt that’s not being accounted for and using it to clear driveways on the side.

The department started a program in 2008 to ensure that ODOT workers use salt efficiently. Department spokesman Scott Varner said Saturday the inspector general’s report gives the department the chance to improve the program. He said materials like salt are hard to measure.

The inspector general’s office launched an investigation after it was tipped off in February about fudged records at a garage in Jefferson County.

The report says transportation manager Scott Jenkins falsified reports filed by ODOT work crews.

Jenkins did not immediately return messages on Saturday.

The report says Jenkins admitted to altering reports as a short-cut to fixing inventory shortages of materials like road salt.

If a physical inventory showed 300 tons of salt, but there were 400 tons on the books, Jenkins would add 100 tons to his crew’s work sheets to balance the two, according to the inspector general’s office.

The investigation also found inconsistencies in the way other garages and districts keep track of their inventories. The inspector general says some districts don’t monitor their salt supplies very closely and rely on balancing inventories after the snow stops.

Statewide ODOT analysis in the report shows that one county couldn’t account for nearly $250,000 of the salt it used this year. It adjusted nearly 5,000 tons of salt this year and paid $55.61 per ton of salt.