Back-to-school season is underway, and school personnel have been busy cleaning, doing repairs and setting up classrooms for the 2026-27 academic year. This work includes making sure appropriate supplies and equipment are there for the students.

Oftentimes, they are not.

For the past two years, Philadelphia’s city controller’s office has cited the School District of Philadelphia for its poor accountability of capital assets. Capital assets are items with a useful life of over one year and that cost at least US$5,000. They include items such as pianos, laptops and smartboards, to name just a few.

Across its schools, the Philadelphia school district holds over $2.8 billion in capital assets, according to the most recent Annual Financial Comprehensive Report.

The controller’s office found that over 60% of the assets it tested in school locations had not been properly recorded in the official ledgers and were unable to be located. Its February 2026 report listed the numerous items by school building. These items included printers, computers and even a lunchroom table.

These findings don’t necessarily mean that a large percentage of assets were definitely lost or stolen; it is often the case that items are moved or disposed of and not properly recorded. But the findings indicate a systemic problem with recording, tracking and disposing of assets.

We are former school leaders in New York state public school districts. One of us was a superintendent of schools from 2008-2019 and the other was a regional school district controller from 2013-2024 in central New York. In these roles, we worked together, with the Board of Education and our administrative team, to build and test policies and procedures for the purchasing, inventorying and auditing of school equipment. We wanted to make sure that all school district assets were accounted for and available for student learning.

Today, we teach aspiring school leaders how to lead all aspects of education programs from pre-K through high school. This includes the business functions of running public schools, such as fulfilling legal, regulatory and policy requirements.

Rules around reporting

Purchasing goods and services is a highly regulated area in U.S. public school districts.

Federal regulations require districts that receive federal funds to maintain control over assets, track purchases, conduct regular inventory of assets and maintain documentation related to purchases and disposals.

During recent reviews of Education Stabilization Fund spending, many districts across the country were found to lack appropriate inventorying of purchases, which is in direct violation of federal procurement requirements. One of us participated in 15 of those reviews; all 15 lacked appropriate inventorying.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry laws and regulations, as well as Philadelphia’s Board of Education, also require accurate inventory records and periodic updates of asset locations, additions, transfers and disposals.

In short, the district has to record the purchase of any capital asset that cost $5,000 or more if it has a useful life of more than one year. These assets and other noncapital items – which are items with a useful life of over one year but cost under $5,000 – must be inventoried by the department responsible for custody of the asset. So, for example, the information technology department is responsible for recording and tracking Chromebooks and iPads, while the special education department would record and track audio equipment purchased for students with special needs.

Local governments, such as Philadelphia schools, are also governed by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, which issues rules on financial transactions and reporting. Accounting Statement 34 from the standards-setting nonprofit lays the foundation for capitalizing, reporting and depreciating capital assets.

Post-pandemic purchases soared

The COVID-19 pandemic that began in March 2020 had a massive impact on students, schools and school districts. A 2023 analysis of almost 600 studies focused on the impact of school closures reported that students lost about 3 ½ months of instruction.

As schools reopened for in-person learning, school districts across the U.S. received federal stimulus funds to, among other priorities, close this learning gap.

Philadelphia public schools received a total of $1.8 billion in federal stimulus funds between 2020 and 2024 to upgrade facilities and support academic recovery.

The money was spent on everything from new laptops and tablets to upgraded heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems and furniture, as well as items like weighted blankets and noise-canceling headphones to address the social and emotional needs of children. The spike in purchases presented challenges when it came to inventorying assets, as a lot of dollars had to be spent quickly within specified grant periods.

Based on the findings of the controller’s report, the Philadelphia school district either lacked systems that were strong enough to track, safeguard and reconcile what it bought, or the district did not use the system properly. The findings state that the district’s decentralized approach to recording assets, with capital assets tracked centrally and noncapital assets tracked by departments or schools, contributed to the issue.

Recommendations for better tracking

The New York state public schools had their own reckoning following a 2004 story, broken by a high school student newspaper, of over $11 million being embezzled by district officials from the Roslyn Union Free School District.

The fallout of this fraud included several new state-level fiscal accountability reforms for all New York school districts, including stricter internal controls, mandatory board oversight and independent auditor requirements. This is the structure we worked under as school district leaders. While stringent, we were able to develop and implement systems and procedures that allowed our students access to the equipment they needed to learn.

Consistent systems, clear policies and processes, and focused accountability can go a long way.

Based on this experience, we believe there are steps that every pre-K to 12 public school district in Pennsylvania and across the country can do to improve their systems for tracking school equipment:

• Districts can set up structures that allow the purchasing department and the receiving departments to work together on appropriately tagging all new equipment.

• Electronic inventory systems, like barcodes, can be expanded to allow for timely updates to capital assets and noncapital inventories to keep better track of equipment, such as if an item is transferred to a different location or becomes damaged and is sent out for repair.

• District leaders can require that each department, from school buildings to centralized technology and special education departments, certify their inventory each year and identify any missing assets. Stringent follow-up on areas of noncompliance can be addressed by the business office.

• Robust training for all school personnel on how to purchase and track assets and inventory items can help ensure compliance. This might include standardized materials and recorded how-to videos.

The Philadelphia school board’s vision is to prepare students to imagine and realize any future they desire. Strong asset management systems can help ensure that the vision becomes reality.

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The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.