Augusta Commissioners are scrambling to create a policy regarding the use of city owned credit cards by elected officials. While this is a long overdue step in the right direction, commissioners have a duty to the taxpayers to conduct an audit of Mayor Hardie Davis’ alleged financial misconduct.
The city department heads who are tasked with oversight have tried to parse language and say there is a city policy regarding “P-Cards” but no policy regarding credit cards.
However, state law is clear. If it is plastic, has a magnetic strip, contains a Visa or Mastercard logo and is used for spending taxpayer funds, then it is a credit card and is subject to state regulations such as that not being used for personal expenses.
The Augusta Commission may have violated state law in 2016 when members failed to conduct a public vote to allow Davis to continue using the credit card assigned to his office.
Records show that, policy or no policy, Davis has used his credit card for expenditures that have gone unexplained and seem to have no relation to the function of his office. PayPal was used to pay various vendors, possibly allowing those them to avoid reporting the income to the IRS.
Davis’ bullying nature is legendary and probably why the directors of the finance and procurement departments never raised an objection as the credit card bills piled up.
Even amid the media scrutinizing the outrageous expenditures, the arrogant Davis increased his credit card usage, racking up over $50,000 in credit card bills this year alone.
This type of behavior would never be allowed in the private sector. If an employee running a business was caught using the company credit card for personal spending, he or she would at best be fired and forced to pay the money back. More than likely, the employee would be charged with theft.
At long last, the commission is set to task the city administrator with developing a credit card policy that complies with state law. However, a new policy is not enough. The reckless spending that has taken place needs to be investigated by the commission.
It is time for the citizens to demand an audit, and if Davis is determined to have broken the law, then he should be charged.
