DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Nine Investigates has spent the past seven days exposing credit card misuse in the city of Daytona Beach. The city manager has responded to our reporting in an email he sent to commissioners and the mayor.
He called our story inaccurate after we reported the city manager was warned by a former employee about issues with city credit cards months ago.
Channel 9 started going through each transaction line by line one week ago, after a commissioner raised concerns about spending.
During our review, we found 10 non-city employees with access to a credit card, one of whom spent nearly $80,000 in a year. We also found thousands of dollars spent on hotels, flights, restaurants, and retail stores. All of these findings are a clear violation of city policy and have drawn attention from state leaders.
The city manager’s email went on to say, “With a team of a thousand employees with numerous layers of supervisors, we are working to respond and be as transparent as possible.”
Despite this statement, the city manager has not responded to multiple interview requests since last Thursday. He finally agreed to meet with us next Monday, but when we asked if he wanted to talk sooner about the former employee’s emails, he stopped responding.
Those emails from July said “The city has been done a disservice by not being able to maintain this program in the way that it should have been. CODB is hemorrhaging funds out through these cards due to the inability to properly analyze their usage and offer follow-up training for cardholders. I have recently discovered policy violations that need high-level attention.”
Feacher responded, saying: “I believe you should be communicating with your supervisor and director of the department. If I were to meet with every single employee of the organization when they wanted to change a process this would not be prudent. “
The employee followed up, letting Feacher know they had already tried that, and then sent in their resignation letter.
Yesterday and today, we emailed every commissioner to get their reaction and called the mayor, but got sent to his voicemail.
Feacher concluded his email by saying he wished the city auditor “had the ability to review our policies and procedures to determine if there was waste, fraud, and abuse, but that process is not happening.”
We looked up the city manager’s job description, and it said it’s his responsibility to update city policies and procedures.
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