Boston city officials are considering ending their yearslong deal of sending millions of dollars in parking meter fares to the MBTA’s problem-plagued “money room,” where a recent audit revealed a slew of embarrassing security lapses, ranging from duct-taped doors to broken vault locks.

The city, which estimates it will send up to $7 million in meter fares to be counted at the T’s Charlestown-based cash operations facility next fiscal year, has been searching for “alternative locations” for several months, Bonnie McGilpin, a spokeswoman for ?Mayor Martin J. Walsh, said yesterday.

McGilpin did not ?address why the city is considering other cash-counting operations, nor did she make Walsh available. But she indicated that it wasn’t related to any security concerns, ?including those raised by a T-commissioned consultant and first reported this week by the Herald.

“We are confident that our meter revenue is transported, counted and deposited in a timely and accurate and secure manner,” McGilpin said in an email, adding that the city regularly weighs the receipts to estimate them and compares that against bank deposits. City officials estimate they’ve used the T’s money room for roughly 15 years.

“Over the past several months, the City of Boston has been engaged in looking at alternative locations for this money,” McGilpin said, “but ?nothing is finalized at ?this time.”

The facility — where workers handle nearly $200 million in cash each year, including from Boston and Cambridge — is suffering from a range of severe security lapses that could cost roughly $500,000 to shore up, according to a consultant.

Beyond faulty equipment — such as a door with a duct-taped handle leading to the facility’s vault — auditors also pointed to inventory problems, including one small vault that contained anywhere from 500 to 1,000 copies of keys used to open fare boxes, plus 3,000 more in another box.

Cambridge City Manager Richard C. Rossi said he was a “little bit alarmed” by the audit and plans to ask the T for more details and for a meeting with interim General Manager Brian Shortsleeve. He said the city has for years done “spot-check” audits on the roughly $4 million to $5 million it sends in meter fares with no issues.

“It opens your eyes,” he said of the audit’s findings, “so you want to think about things differently. … This is a little bit of a ?surprise.”