The property classes in a municipal loss
City and county facilities hold a wider range of property than almost any commercial site: office furnishings and IT in administrative buildings, shop and fleet equipment in public works depots, radio and communications gear, evidence and records storage, parks and recreation equipment, library collections, and specialist plant that has no retail equivalent at all.
Public works depots are where the value concentrates and where a generic inventory fails. Mowers, plant, compressors, generators, welders and vehicle-service equipment all carry nameplates that resolve to a current market price, and none of them are priced from a catalogue. Each unit is recorded by manufacturer, model, serial number, capacity and year with the plate photographed.
Records, retention and access
Stored records are a category of their own. Municipal records frequently sit under retention schedules that decide whether a damaged file can be discarded at all, so volume and condition are recorded and the retention question is raised with the entity rather than assumed. Evidence storage carries chain-of-custody requirements that dictate who may open a container and when.
Access itself is a constraint: badging, restricted areas, escort requirements and, on airports, security zones with their own rules. These are scoped before deployment so consultants are not standing at a door waiting for someone with a key.
Reconciling to the asset register
Most entities hold a fixed asset register, and most registers diverge from the floor. Equipment is disposed of without being written off; equipment moves between buildings without the register following it. Reconciling during the inventory rather than afterwards surfaces those divergences while there is still someone on site who can answer the question.