The City of Bellevue is aware of the recent letter and press release issued by the Nebraska State Auditor of Public Accounts (APA) regarding the City’s policies and practices related to the sale of surplus property. The City of Bellevue takes this matter seriously and affirms its commitment to serving Bellevue residents with accountability, transparency, and integrity in government.
The City is taking decisive and proactive steps to ensure transparency and accountability, while reinforcing safeguards to ensure full compliance with Nebraska state statutes and City policies governing the sale of surplus property.
The City is disappointed to review and discover that the APA’s public communication omitted key facts known to the APA’s office and instead presented conclusions that do not reflect the full record. The City fully supports the APA’s role to deliver independent, accurate, and timely reviews consistent with its own mission, and trusts any public statements regarding investigations to reflect the complete factual context. It is, therefore, both frustrating and disappointing when the agency purportedly tasked with ensuring government transparency acts so opaquely with the public. Such misrepresentation of the facts threatens to irreparably damage the reputation of the City.
The City learned of this investigation on December 11, 2025, and has since offered full cooperation and transparency to the APA. The City immediately retained an independent third party, outside of City government, to evaluate and recommend improvements to the City of Bellevue’s internal controls related to surplus property sales. This independent evaluation is complete, and it did not identify any violation of applicable City policies, improper sale of City property at below market value sales for similar government surplus vehicles, or deliberate circumvention of the City’s surplus asset disposal process.
The City of Bellevue stands ready to take all appropriate actions to implement recommendations from the independent evaluator and/or the APA to further strengthen internal controls and ensure surplus property is disposed of in a manner that fully complies with applicable statutory requirements and City policy, as identified in the APA’s letter of findings.
The City of Bellevue will continue to cooperate fully should any further inquiry be undertaken regarding this matter.
The City invites residents, media, and other stakeholders to review the City’s full response submitted to the APA on January 7, 2026, which offers a thorough detail regarding the City’s surplus sales policies and the transactions in question.
The City's full response to the State Auditor is included as an attachment below.