(The Center Square) – A cascade of errors is hampering the office tasked with managing the estates of those who die without a will in Nevada’s most populous county.

That’s the takeaway from a 27-page audit of the Clark County Public Administrator’s Office. The county is home to Las Vegas.

The audit, which covered everything from 2024 through the middle of this year, was put out by the Clark County Audit Department, which is headed up by Director Angela Darragh and four others who report directly to County Manager Kevin Schiller.

The audit was released this week - four years after former County Public Administrator Robert Telles killed Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German after German's coverage of alleged corruption in Telles' office. Telles was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced in 2024 to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 2050.

The Clark County audit identified eight areas of concern for the Public Administrator's Office, with 23 recommendations for improvements.

The office, which received $2.5 million in taxpayer money during the 2027 fiscal year, has a staff of 29 employees, 16 of whom are full-time. Still, it has 1,892 open cases that have been open for an average of 1,118 days as of July 28, according to the audit, with delayed casework leading to extended possession of property, the audit found.

Current Public Administrator Rita Reid is not seeking reelection this fall. Reid did not respond to The Center Square's requests for comment.

The two candidates vying to replace Reid are Democrat Stephanie Itkin-Goodman and Republican Patrick Michael Murphy, with the former responding to The Center Square on Wednesday evening, while the latter discussed the future of the office on Thursday morning.

Murphy previously served as Clark County coroner from 2002 to 2015, which is an appointed position in the office that was the inspiration for the CBS series "CSI," created by Las Vegas bellhop-turned-producer Anthony Zuiker.

During an interview on Thursday, Murphy touted his experience with the coroners office and the 11-month stint he spent with the office in 2022 as proof that he has the experience and know-how needed to right the ship going forward.

"If I'm fortunate enough to be elected, I will use that audit document as a roadmap to make corrections and continue providing services to the citizens of Clark County in an appropriate and as speedy a manner as possible," Murphy told The Center Square. "I think the audit is timely and that it's something that needed to be done.

"And I want to be very clear that I have the expertise, the skills and specifically the knowledge to make the corrections to push the office forward in an appropriate manner and take care of business."

Itkin-Goodman, who moved to the Silver State from New York five years ago, touted her background as an attorney and her role as the state’s deputy attorney general as reasons why she should be trusted to turn the agency around.

"My opponent says he wants to ‘finish what I started.’ That is exactly the concern,” Itkin-Goodman told The Center Square. “This office does not need a continuation of the failures identified in this audit. It needs accountability and fundamental reform, which I bring as the only attorney in the race.”

Audit findings

Concerning accountability, the audit found the office’s inability to close cases quickly was one the eight findings listed and one of the six that were identified as being “high risk” in the audit, indicating “an immediate or significant threat to one or more of the impact areas,” according to the report.

The other five “high risk” findings included $623,000 in service fees that were collected between March 2024 and July 7, 2026, that were not transferred properly to the county and “cremains” (or cremated human and pet remains) that have been eating up the agency’s storage in recent years.

In total, 105 human and six pet “cremains” were still being stored by the agency as of this June, with 63% of those 105 urns being stored for two years or more, the audit found.

Nevada law allows crematories to dispose of unclaimed remains after two years, though the agency’s regulations do not.

Elsewhere in the audit, regulators found that the Public Administrator's Office has not performed documented audits of the decedent's property it stores, producing two limited vault property audits in 2024 and 2025.

“Overall, the Office does not have an enforced formal policy for performing inventories/audits of vault property,” the audit reads. “Property that is stolen or distributed to the wrong individual will not be identified in a timely manner to allow for investigation and recovery.

“This is especially important during times when there is a change in Public Administrator or individual responsible for the vault,” it continues.

Auditors were unable to locate all the items that were listed as being inside of the agency’s vault when they did a random sweep in June, noting a laptop that was taken into custody in 2020 and flagged as being in the vault that was not there.

The fifth major flaw identified in the audit centered around who has access to the vault in the first place, with non-vault staff using keys to access property, including one who was not a member of the county’s staff at all.

Finally, auditors found two cases in 2026 where staff went more than 30 days between doing residence welfare checks that are required as part of the agency’s safeguarding practices.

The audit found that initial visits by staff were conducted as intended, but that there were two cases where there were 70-day gaps between those stops and the next welfare check.

In the case of the second check, the residence in question was “compromised” and the person’s car was missing, according to the audit.

The two final, less risky findings concerned what the audit called the department’s lack of documentation for handling property and employees carrying out their duties before taking the oaths of office required by law. The lack of property documentation was described as having a "medium risk" status, while the oaths of office question was described as the sole "low risk" item.

What happens next?

Auditors issued 23 recommendations for the department, ranging from establishing benchmarks to close cases in a timely manner to transferring any unpaid service fees to the county as required.

Additionally, the department was prodded by auditors to improve its inventory audits and to curtail storage access to authorized employees based on their specific job duties. That, along with improved welfare check processes and better written policies and procedures, were crucial to avoiding the mishaps that have plagued the department of late, the audit found.

“Findings are rated based on a risk assessment that takes into consideration the circumstances of the current condition including compensating controls and the potential impact on reputation and customer confidence, safety and health, finances, productivity, and the possibility of fines or legal penalties,” the audit reads. “It also considers the impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data.”

In response to the audit, Itkin-Goodman told The Center Square that the next public administrator needs to be someone who can overhaul the office entirely, not just slap a bandage on it and move on.

“This office needs someone prepared to enforce the law, address systemic failures, and demand accountability, not simply perpetuate the same failed management practices that led to these issues,” Itkin-Goodman said.

“Clark County families deserve answers, not excuses," she said. "This office cannot afford another administration that treats the status quo as an accomplishment."

During his nearly year-long stint with the office, Murphy remembers bringing up suggestions to Telles but having them fall on deaf ears.

Four years later, he hopes that he'll have the chance to enact the changes that are brought up in this year's audit, helping serve the people of Clark County in ways that the office has failed to do in recent years.

"That's one of the main reasons why I'm running for the office. I know what needs to get done," Murphy said. "I just need to get in there and get it done, and I have the skills and the expertise, and so I'm going to do that."