Columbus – Auditor of State Keith Faber today released a performance audit of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency’s (Ohio EPA) real estate footprint, which recommends potential savings of $2.7 million in the first year. 

“Evaluating your footprint and space utilization is a good habit to get into to ensure you are efficiently and effectively using resources,” said Auditor Faber. “By taking a look at their facilities with this performance audit, the Ohio EPA can make educated decisions to consolidate, reconfigure and renegotiate their space.”

With four district offices outside of Columbus, one specialized field office, and a central headquarters, the audit focused on real estate with a spotlight on regional offices.  The audit provided recommendations with potential annual savings ranging from $270,000 to $1 million.

The audit found that if the Ohio EPA consolidated leased district offices by cutting rent expenses and entering new leases, they could achieve significant savings. The Performance Audit Team evaluated office space based on industry standards and internal benchmarks.

Additionally, the audit recommends that Ohio EPA should abandon a pervious capital budget appropriation for building a new warehouse facility and instead continue leasing its Groveport facility and expand its functionality to meet the need for increased staff training. This plan would have a one-time savings of $1.7 million.

The Auditor’s office is statutorily required to conduct four performance audits on state agencies and state universities each biennium.

The full report can be found online.

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The Auditor of State’s office, one of five independently elected statewide offices in Ohio is responsible for auditing more than 6,000 state and local government agencies. Under the direction of Auditor Keith Faber, the office also provides financial services to local governments, investigates and prevents fraud in public agencies, and promotes transparency in government.

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Allie Dumski

Press Secretary

(614) -644-1111