Colorado spent nearly $175,000 on government issued cellphones for employees of various departments that went unused last year, according to a recent state audit.

About 400 of the 6,688 cellphones issued to state employees received no calls or texts and used no cellular data for the entire year, resulting in a loss of $173,000, the Office of the State Auditor said in its report.

Representatives of several departments named in the audit said some of those cellphones were unused because they were for emergencies only and it would have cost more to cancel service on them. However, the audit said, it was not always clear which phones were for emergencies due to “unreliable or incomplete” department records.

The departments that spent the most on employee cellphones were the Department of Corrections, the Department of Human Services, the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Transportation. Combined, those five departments spent about $6.7 million on 10,000 employee cellphones.

The audit also noted that the five departments did not provide documentation showing that proper approvals were obtained before the phones were issued to employees, nor did they keep records of signed usage agreements, which are required by the Office of the State Controller.

“These issues create the risks that state-issued cellphones may be issued unnecessarily and employees may not understand their responsibilities related to the cellphones,” said audit manager Vicki Heller.

The audit found that the departments did not manage cellphones centrally. Instead, they allowed different units to purchase and manage accounts with multiple carriers.

Additionally, in Fiscal Years 2023 and 2025, the Department of Personnel and Administration did not receive nine of 24 required quarterly sales reports from Verizon and AT&T and the sales reports from Verizon and T-Mobile were missing sales and usage data for more than 1,000 state-issued cellphones.

According to the personnel agency, the data is necessary to monitor department spending and ensure vendors pay the state the correct amount of administrative fees based on their sales.

The audit made 11 recommendations, including that the five departments with the largest cellphone spending improve their management procedures and comply with state requirements regarding assignments and use and review all current employee cellphone assignments to ensure they have the required approvals and signed usage agreements.