CENTRAL FLORIDA -- Local governments spent hundreds of thousands of tax dollars on equipment they can’t find.

Orange County bought a John Deere Loader for $110,000 and a generator for $33,000 and both were stolen. Taxpayer Rusty Wilson says obviously someone is walking off with it.

The original cost of Orange County’s missing items last year totals more than $400,000.

“They need to figure out where the leaks are where it’s disappearing,” Wilson said.

Eyewitness News checked records for Central Florida counties and found the most common missing items are computers.

“Some of them walk, absolutely. We lose computer equipment because someone has taken it home and they shouldn’t have,” Orange County Comptroller Haynie said.

Orange County Schools lost a milk cooler, golf cart and a piano. Seminole County Schools can’t find an electronic message board that cost $5,000. The original value of missing items last year in Seminole schools is more than $183,000.

“That’s the salary of how many teachers? Three, four teachers a year,” parent Juanita Santiago said.

A county spokesman says depreciated values of many missing items, especially computers, are much lower but critics say that’s not the point.

“We always have to pay the bill as the worker-bee taxpayers," Wilson said.

Orange County managers did file police reports for all of the stolen items.

“Where is the security?” WFTV reporter Vanessa Welch asked.

“Well it was insufficient at that time,” Haynie replied.

Haynie says the county will make some changes.

"We are looking at ways to see if we can put tracking devices on large pieces of equipment," she explained.

GPS tracking units have been available for years. Eyewitness News found them for around $200 each, Orange County had been quoted $450 each. The local governments could have tracked most, if not all of their missing items for the price of one missing loader.

Government spokesmen say they only lose a small percentage of their inventory. In Orange County, it’s less than one percent. The Orange County Comptroller also said the county recently put stricter rules in place to track items and hold managers accountable.