City audit finds no wrongdoing

As the county wrestles with the fallout of impropriety and perhaps illegality in its procurement department, a city audit of some of its own procurement practices identifies some areas of improvement but discovers no wrongdoing.

City Manager Bob Bartolotta ordered the audit into the city’s use of purchasing credit cards, or P-cards, before the county procurement scandal broke in March.

“It was a pretty good audit,” he said.

About 60 city employees have been issued P-cards, and the audit found that unlike in the county, transactions on the cards were compliant with the city’s rules and regulations.

During a county audit, it was discovered that county workers were using their P-cards to get around county rules that required a bidding process, and they used the cards on what appeared to be personal items at retail stores.

The city auditor was concerned with the fact that many of the city P-cards had not been used or were used infrequently and asked whether the number of cards could be pared.

It was also determined that individual P-card accounts were not closed immediately when a cardholder ended his employment with the city.

Bartolotta said he was looking into both of those issues.

The city manager, though, disagreed with another recommendation.

It was suggested in the final report that new employees not be issued P-cards until they were through their probationary period.

Bartolotta felt that should depend on the level of employee.

“We can’t have a new director and not give them the ability to make purchases,” he argued.

But, overall, Bartolotta was pleased with the audit’s findings.

“I thought we did pretty well,” he said.

Contact Robin Roy at [email protected].