Los Angeles County Telephone Directory - 2009 (Name ... - Home

GUIDELINES FOR IDENTIFYING AND MINIMIZING TELEPHONE ABUSE
GUIDELINES FOR IDENTIFYING AND MINIMIZING
TELEPHONE ABUSE
County departments and organizations should review their telecommunications
expenditures and inventories for accuracy and cost control. The following guidelines
will assist County departments and organizations to identify and minimize telephone
abuse within Los Angeles County:
Review of Telephone Usaae Reports
Abuse of the County's telephone system, by both County employees and others,
continues to be a problem as well as an unwarranted expense to the County. Careful
review of your organization's telephone bill by your Department's Telephone
Coordinator andlor Management team will help identify abuse and control
telecommunications costs.
Each County organization is responsible for managing their telecommunications
expenditures and preventing or identifying abuse. Possible abuse can be detected by a
cursory review of the local, toll, and long distance call summary included in your
telephone bill package or by a more detailed review of the reports and information
included in the County's electronic Billing and Analysis Tool (eBAT).
If you notice a substantial, unexplained increase in the charges for a telephone
number, immediately report it to your Departmental Telephone Coordinator or your
assigned ISD Communications Services Analyst (CSA). It may be indicative of fraud,
and if so, ISD will seek credit from the telephone company and help establish controls
to minimize the future occurrence of such practices. If you do not know your ISD CSA.
please call (562) 9404302.
Review of Telecommunications Inventory
County departments and organizations should review their telecommunications
inventories for accuracy. Communicate needed telephone inventory changes to your
Departmental Telephone Coordinator in a timely manner. Your department should
review the telecommunications inventory on a regular basis to identify unused lines,
lines that don't belong to the department, disconnected lines, etc. Regular reviews and
updates of this information will reduce your telecommunications costs and it will help
ensure correct billings.
ISD recommends assigning each inventory number to a manageable level within your
department. The County's billing system is capable of separating and producing usage
and inventory reports at lower organizational levels (e.g., Division, Bureau, Branch,
etc.). These reports can be a powerful tool to help manage your department's
telephone costs, maintain the integrity of your inventory, and help to fight abuse. If you
would like to organize your bill into a more manageable format, please contact your ISD
CSA to assist you. If you do not know your CSA, please call (562) 9404302.
Restriction to O~erator Access
In general, County employees should not use telephone company operators to place
calls. - ~ Ooerator assisted calls are more expensive than direct dialed calls. In addition.
with the assistance of the operator, employees may make unauthorized long di$tance
telephone calls and bill them to the number making the call. Minimizing operator-
10 County of Los Angeles