Southtowns Record

North Collins Central School District – Building Access (S9-26-16)

Government
North Collins Central School District
Posted by publisher
Jul 31, 2026
Kind
State audit
Topics
Audits and oversight

Publisher's summary

Did North Collins Central School District (District) officials properly manage and monitor building access accounts and devices?

Original document

Text · page 3 of 12

Audit Results
North Collins Central School District

  Audit Objective
Did North Collins Central School District (District) officials properly manage and monitor building access
accounts and devices?

  Audit Period
July 1, 2024 – November 30, 2025

We extended our audit period to February 3, 2026 to review access activity logs.

  Understanding the Audit Area
Building access controls are essential for enhancing security and enabling school officials to manage and
monitor entry points within educational institutions. These systems authenticate a user through devices such
as key fobs, keycards, badges, or similar technologies, helping to ensure only authorized individuals can enter
school buildings. By limiting access in this way, schools can better safeguard their facilities and maintain a safe
and secure environment for students, teachers, staff and visitors.

The District uses a building access management system (system) which included 280 active building access
accounts (accounts) associated with 167 devices issued to current employees, and 113 issued to non-
employees including 23 shared devices. 1 Each of the District’s two school buildings have one public point of
entry. Employees can also use other points of entry, which require a device to enter the building.

  Audit Summary
District officials did not properly manage and monitor building access accounts and devices (badges). As a
result, there was a potential risk for unauthorized access to District school buildings, compromising building
security and safety for students, teachers, staff and visitors. Specifically, of the accounts we reviewed, the
District had 17 active, but unneeded, non-employee accounts with assigned badges in the system, including:

  •  11 badges issued to individual non-employees, and
  •  Six shared badges.

Although District officials had a process for adding accounts in the system for employees and non-employees,
there was no process for promptly disabling or deleting accounts when no longer needed. Furthermore, these
issues occurred because no one periodically reviewed active accounts to determine whether they were
needed.

This report includes three recommendations that, if implemented, will help District officials improve
management and monitoring of building access accounts and badges. District officials generally agreed with
our recommendations and their response is included in Appendix B.

1 A shared account or device is assigned to a user for a specific role or function but not assigned to a specific individual (e.g., vendors or first
responders).
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