Nancy Jester: DeKalb P-Card Ban Long Overdue – Just A Beginning

DeKalb County Commissioner Nancy Jester released the following statement:

The ban on P-Cards in DeKalb County is long overdue and just a beginning to reforms needed in DeKalb to restore trust, bring real reform, and establish true transparency, ethics, and integrity back to DeKalb County government.

I support serious efforts to expose abuse, corruption, and malfeasance. Exposing abuse of P-Cards is not small potatoes or sensationalism – it is uncovering waste and evidence of criminal activity, which must be sent to the appropriate legal authority and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Upon my election, I directed that my office would not receive any P-Cards or participate in the use of P-Cards. I have repeatedly called for my fellow Commissioners to voluntarily suspend using P-Cards. It is regrettable that it took the expense of taxpayer dollars on special investigators to force the County to end the P-Card program in DeKalb County.

It is extremely troubling that an audit of the county’s purchasing-card spending found lax oversight of the program and receipts missing for some expenses.

The audit found that the DeKalb Board of Commissioners, and its staff, have spent $257,170 on P-cards since 2006. Receipts were submitted for only 57 percent of those transactions. It is essential that every single penny of taxpayer money spent by a DeKalb County Commissioner and staff be accounted for. Failure to do so is unacceptable.

Contrary to some who have suggested too much emphasis has been placed on investigating P-Card abuse, I call upon appropriate law enforcement agencies to move with all haste to prosecute those who have used P-Cards to waste and misuse taxpayer dollars.

Common sense and integrity does not require a recommendation from special investigators after the fact – it is essential the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners restore trust by making all their records relating to P-Cards public – immediately.

I want to be clear; I know the vast majority of employees of DeKalb County are hard-working people who do their jobs everyday with honor and dignity.  However, it is imperative the taxpayers of DeKalb County know we are serious about restoring the public’s confidence and seeing all who abuse their tax dollars face scrutiny and justice.