About Asset Management Services:

Asset Management Services (AMS) provides a comprehensive statewide program to state agencies assisting them with fulfilling statutory requirements for maintaining, reporting and certifying inventories consisting of their state owned assets.

In summary, Section 125.16 of the Ohio Revised Code (ORC) establishes that state agencies shall maintain inventories of their state owned assets, as well as report and certify their updated inventory activities to Administrative Services in accordance with prescribed procedures by the Director of Administrative Services. Also, Administrative Services’ Directive 04-27 provides additional language for AMS to provide policies and procedures for agencies to follow. Thus, on behalf of the Director of Administrative Services, AMS is responsible for administering the State of Ohio’s Asset Management Program as promulgated by both ORC and Administrative Services’ Directive.

As part of AMS’ statewide asset management program, it provides an online centralized Fixed Asset Management System (FAMS) for agencies to maintain their inventory activity of assets. Enhancements to FAMS has continued for better data collection and reporting of state owned assets for the agency users and other customers. Some other recipients and uses of FAMS inventory information are the Office of Budget Management (OBM) issuances of Ohio’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFR), Public Safety’s Homeland Security Program, Administrative Services’ State Catastrophic Property Insurance Program, Auditor of State’s Agency Audit Program and finally, agencies participating in Federal programs such as Statewide Comprehensive Allocation Program (SWCAP) and various Federal Grant programs.

A Web application called the Fixed Asset Search and Transfer (FAST) was recently developed and implemented by AMS as an ancillary system to FAMS, thus allowing each agency easy access to its inventory information and FAMS generated reports.

As previously mentioned, AMS provides asset management policies and procedures to agencies assisting them with properly maintaining and reporting their inventories. The State of Ohio’s Asset Management Policies and Procedures help agencies to manage their inventories according to uniform standards and best practices. Also, the State of Ohio’s Asset Management Policies and Procedures compliments and references OBM’s financial reporting requirements for capital (fixed) assets. OBM’s Capital Asset Policies are based on Generally Accepted Accounting Principals (GAAP) and recently issued Statement 34 from the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (a.k.a. GASB 34), both with which agencies must comply. AMS maintains a close working relationship with the Office of Budget and Management and its many other customers receiving information to make sure that all their requirements and expectations are meet.

AMS has traditionally provided instructional manuals and training to state agencies on the use of FAMS and procedures for reporting their annual certified inventory activities to DAS. For several years, AMS has provided agencies updated and comprehensive user documentation to FAMS, called the FAMS User Guide. Additionally, AMS has provided to state agencies detailed instructions to assist them with their annual inventory activity certifications. In recent years, AMS has modestly expanded its staff for ongoing individualized consulting, classroom training and desk help support to agencies, which now includes the FAST Web application.

Additional staff has permitted AMS to have a fulltime employee at the Ohio Administrative Knowledge System’s (OAKS) Project Management Office (PMO). Therefore, AMS is actively involved with OAKS by having a fulltime participant at OAKS’ PMO as the Asset Management Team Leader. To learn more about OAKS, please access its Website at:
http://www.oaks.ohio.gov/oaks/

Many other agency self-service support and helpful materials can be found on AMS’ Website, including the FAMS User Guide (all chapters and appendixes), FAMS Desk Aid for quick referrals on minimal transaction input requirements, training schedules and applications for training, forms for agencies to keep their customer contact profiles up-to-date, and links to other helpful sites such as OBM’s Capital (fixed) Asset Policies.