Wichita interim police chief Troy Livingston said Thursday that significant progress has been made with an internal audit of the police department’s property and evidence storage.

Wichita city manager Robert Layton said in late Seprember that his office would take a closer look at issues with the police department’s handling of property and evidence. Layton said an audit revealed the problems in 2021, but there have been delays in putting recommendations into effect.

At the mayor’s weekly news conference Thursday at City Hall, Livingston had an update on the first few weeks of an internal audit of the property and evidence section.  He said sexual assault kits that were reported to be improperly stored turned out to be empty boxes, with evidence that was already processed.   He said everything is being properly stored but a full inventory will be completed later this year.

Livingston said a cash count has been completed and a discrepancy that was discovered was due to human error, with an error rate of less than half a percent.   He said regular audits will be conducted on the “safe room” that holds cash recovered in investigations.   He said 352 cases have been identified for a total of around $55,000 in cash that has been unclaimed for six months.  Under Kansas law, that money will be transferred to a police benefit fund.

Livingston said a full warehouse inventory and purge of evidence is expected to take about a year to complete.  An inventory of confiscated guns will be conducted and that will take about four weeks.    He said policies and procedures have been updated to match best practices with other police departments across the country, and at this point there has been no discovery of any missing evidence or improper storage of evidence.    The city still has inventory from around 100,000 to 200,000 cases, and only 2,500 cases have been accounted for at this point.

Mayor Brandon Whipple said the city is planning to provide regular updates as the audit continues.