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LA Times Blog, May 2, 2010 |  8:32 pm

With the city of Los Angeles facing severe spending cutbacks to balance a historic budget deficit, some city departments are having trouble accounting for money they’ve already spent, according to an audit to be released Monday.

The audit by Controller Wendy Greuel found that three city departments could not immediately find more than 100 items they had purchased over the last seven years at a cost of $5,000 or more each, according to a news release from Greuel’s office.

Greuel conducted an audit of the Department of Parks and Recreation, the Bureau of Sanitation and the Information Technology Agency, asking officials to account for 254 randomly selected items. The audit found that 115 items were not where they should have been. Fifty-six were later found in the wrong location. Fifty-nine others, at combined cost of $938,000, have not been located.

Among the missing items was a video recorder purchased by the information agency for nearly $60,000, the news release said. The audit is expected to be made public at a news conference at 10 a.m. Monday.

– Scott Glover