An audit of six Kansas law enforcement agencies revealed each lacked internal controls to sufficiently track seized property and showed four local agencies failed to comply with civil forfeiture reporting mandates.

The 2016 Legislature considered, but didn’t pass, legislation that would have changed the way state and local agencies took possession of real and personal property, including cash, guns, vehicles and land.

Inaction at the Capitol led the auditing arm of the Legislature to examine practices at the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, Kansas Highway Patrol, as well as the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Department and the Salina, Coffeyville and Iola police departments. The goal was to sample a portion of the state’s 300 local and state agencies and share findings with lawmakers.

In general, auditors concluded the six law enforcement agencies adequately safeguarded seized property. None had complete procedures on seized and forfeited assets. Auditors noted city, county and state agencies had discretion over how proceeds were invested, "which creates a risk agencies could begin to depend on them for operating funds."

The Salina, Coffeyville and Iola police agencies didn’t prepare an annual report on the value and type of forfeitures and how proceeds were spent because administrators weren’t aware of the state law, the audit said. Sedgwick County officials said they didn’t produce that annual report because most of the information was available to county commissioners.

Auditors identified a conflict of interest between the Coffeyville Police Department and the Montgomery County attorney’s office. The county attorney declined to handle the city’s forfeiture cases in his official capacity. He had his private law firm take control of the cases. The firm was paid $21,000 from 2013 to 2015 that otherwise would have gone to the county attorney’s office.

The Salina Police Department was found to lack sufficient control of money used in controlled drug buys. The report said officers were allowed to check out large amounts of cash and officers "did not routinely return unused money."

The Coffeyville and Iola police departments didn’t issue notices of seizure to individuals as required by state law. Neither of these agencies secured their impound lots and failed to conduct periodic reviews of seized inventory.

"All state legal requirements and best practices cited in the audit will be corrected and implemented by the department," said Iola Chief Jared Warner.

In Coffeyville, auditors discovered $600 in seized cash was unaccounted for or misplaced.

Coffeyville Chief Kwin Bromley said the agency had started making necessary policy and procedure changes to comply with laws noted in the audit. He said budgetary restraints would make it unlikely the department could comply with auditors’ suggestions on storage of seized vehicles.

In terms of liquidating seized property, Salina didn’t deposit all forfeiture funds directly to the dedicated account as required by Kansas statute. Since August 2014, auditors said, the department placed at least $18,500 in forfeited cash in an office safe for use in controlled drug buys or to pay for vehicle repairs or training costs.

The KHP placed in a forfeiture account $218,000 in seized cash that hadn’t been subject to proper court oversight. Mingling approved and unapproved money could lead to expenditure of cash not legally in the agency’s possession, auditors said.

The report said four of the agencies lacked policy consistent with state law prohibiting employees from buying forfeited property and five agencies mingled forfeiture funds with drug-tax proceeds.

The six agencies banked $1.46 million in forfeiture revenue from 2012 to 2015, auditors calculated in the report. Equipment was the biggest expenditure category, consuming $313,000 of the total, but $132,000 went to vehicle costs, $111,000 to meals and lodging and $113,000 to training. The KHP was unique in devoting $453,000 in this period to payroll costs.

In 2015, a report by the Institute for Justice criticized Kansas’ approach to allowing law enforcement agencies to seize cash and assets, even if no one has been charged or convicted of a crime.

The state earned a D-minus in the national analysis, a reflection of the Virginia legal advocacy organization’s conclusion Kansas law inadequately protected property rights and gave law enforcement financial incentive to take property.