County looks to install inventory control system

Polk County officials will be putting barcodes on property used by employees and elected officials alike in the coming months as part of a new inventory control system.

The Public Works committee approved a request from county manager Matt Denton at its June 2 meeting, to move forward with the purchase of the system. A combination of soft- ware, barcode scanners and printers will create barcodes and track items issued to county employees, making it easier to keep up with who has what in the county government.

Denton said an existing county ordinance already requires the county to track anything over $500 purchased with tax-payer dollars, but that “over the years the system has fallen to the wayside.”

“It’s not that we don’t trust our employees, we place a lot of trust in them daily,” he said. “It’s that we want to protect our employees and former employees from any issues they might encounter using county property in their jobs.”

The system, priced at $5,600 after the inclusion of software, barcode printers and scanners, will be controlled by finance and human resources personnel, with Denton being able to oversee the system as a whole.

Denton said the pack- age includes a 2-hour training session that can be viewed on video now and in the future by employees responsible for creating the barcodes.

He said some items with a value of more than $500, such as firearms and tasers used by police officers, won’t get bar-codes because it would be impractical. For those type items, Denton said the county would use serial numbers as the tracking IDs.