The Clark County office responsible for managing the estates of people who die without a willing or qualified administrator has not sent $623,000 in collected fees to the county since March 2024, a county audit found.

The Clark County Audit Department's report also found the Public Administrator's Office holds 105 sets of human cremated remains with no plan to dispose of them and has left nearly 1,900 estate cases open, many for years. The Nevada Independent first reported on the audit Wednesday, Oct. 28.

Henderson residents are among those served by the countywide office, which handles estates across Clark County. The audit does not break out cases by city.

What the audit found

The report, covering January 2024 through August 2026, rated six of its eight findings high risk, one medium risk and one low risk, according to the Las Vegas Sun. It makes 23 recommendations. The version the Sun reviewed was marked a draft.

The office has no internal benchmark for closing cases. Auditors called a 24-month timeline reasonable. Of the open cases, 59 percent, or 1,106, are more than two years old. Of those, 315 have been open more than five years and 34 more than 10 years.

In a random sample of 30 of the 315 oldest cases, 19 showed no activity in the six months before June 30, 2026, the Sun reported.

The 105 human cremated remains sit in the containers in which investigators found them, in a warehouse shared with the Public Guardian's Office. Of those, 63 percent arrived before 2024, some as early as 2014. The county's designated crypt space is full, so the associated cases must stay open. The audit rated the finding high risk and said keeping remains more than two years with no disposal plan is "neither considerate nor ethical," the Sun reported.

The office also held 289 physical checks as of March 5, 2026, with 229 of them older than 180 days. That is the general limit for a bank to negotiate a check. The office had not remitted auction proceeds since July 2021, the audit said.

A vault technician has physical custody of decedents' property, access to property records and sole responsibility for inventory audits, the Sun reported. The technician can change inventory records without a witness or supervisor approval. A badge-access review found one person who is not a county employee and could not be validated.

Commissioners respond

The Clark County Audit Committee took up the report at an Oct. 28 meeting. Commissioner Michael Naft, the committee's chair, addressed Public Administrator Rita Page Reid directly.

"These findings are very serious, they are frustrating. We've been through this now on multiple occasions," Naft said, according to the Nevada Independent. "I think the hard part is you have no plan."

Reid apologized for the delays and cited the department's troubled history and a lack of staff and resources, the Nevada Independent reported. She agreed to let county staff begin supervising the department starting Thursday, Oct. 29.

In a statement, Clark County said the audit's challenges speak more to "operational issues rather than staffing levels." The county said it had offered retired district attorneys, vendors and supplemental staffing to address the backlog. "These solutions were not received by the Public Administrator," the statement said, according to the Sun.

Reid declined the Nevada Independent's request for comment and did not respond to a message from the Sun. She is not seeking reelection. Her term ends Dec. 31.

Election Tuesday

Voters will choose Reid's successor Tuesday, Nov. 3. Democrat Stephanie Itkin-Goodman, a Nevada deputy attorney general, faces Republican Michael Murphy, a former Clark County coroner, according to the Nevada Current.

The county hired Murphy in 2022 to address turmoil in the office under then-Public Administrator Robert Telles, who was convicted of first-degree murder in August 2024 for the fatal stabbing of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German. A judge sentenced Telles to 28 years to life in prison.

Both candidates told the Nevada Independent they were concerned with the audit's findings. Murphy said the audit provided "a roadmap for the next public administrator to come in and take it to the next level." Itkin-Goodman said the office needs independent leadership and fundamental reform.

The audit said the newly elected administrator will be responsible for carrying out any corrective actions. The next term begins Jan. 4, 2027.