October 11, 2006

Protective Force Property Management at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Lawrence Livermore AND OBJECTIVE National Laboratory (LLNL) supports the maintenance of a safe, secure, and reliable nuclear weapon stockpile and provides expertise toward the prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorist attacks. LLNL is a National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) site operated by the University of California. In support of its core mission, Livermore maintains a protective force that is trained and equipped to secure its facilities and operations. For the past five years, the Laboratory’s protective force has maintained a supply room that provides equipment required for Security Police Officers (SPOs) to carry out their duties. We were told by a knowledgeable Livermore employee that about $380,000 in Government funds was expended annually on Government property that is issued by the supply room to the Laboratory’s SPOs. In February 2006, the Office of Inspector General received an allegation that the LLNL protective force supply room was being mismanaged. Specifically, it was alleged that: (1) there was no organized method of accountability and distribution of equipment; (2) equipment was scattered throughout the supply room with no apparent system of organization; (3) orders for equipment were written down on scratch paper, with no formal ordering or order tracking system; (4) there were instances where equipment ordered for specific individuals was not received or was received but given to other officers; and, (5) when equipment was issued, it was not documented. In addition, concern was expressed that, because of the poor property controls, there was a strong possibility for equipment to be diverted and resold outside the Laboratory. The objective of this inspection was to review the adequacy ofinternal controls associated with LLNL’s protective force supply room. To provide context for this review, we also conducted limited reviews of the protective force supply rooms at two other NNSA facilities, Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos) and Sandia National Laboratory-New Mexico (Sandia).