Daytona Beach Gov't Purchasing Card Scrutiny

The Daytona Beach City Commission is caught up in a handful of monetary issues. Center stage is the use of Purchasing Cards, AKA P-Cards.

City Manager Deric C. Feacher has done interviews, the City Commission and residents have spoken. Let's review:

City Manager Deric C. Feacher 

Mr. Feacher is not doing himself any favors during his recent media tour designed to make things better with comments such as, "We've got some outdated policies. They go back to 1999 not only for P-Cards, but for travel."

If outdated policies are an issue and Mr. Feacher did nothing to change them, for the four-plus years he's been city manager, then he is part of the problem. Mr. Feacher, you are throwing yourself under the bus with this incomplete explanation.

It would be better to add a mea culpa. Say that you should have realized the outdated rules were an issue and should have done something about them years ago.

The comment was taken from an interview he did on the Volusia Matters Podcast, broadcast on Wednesday, Nov. 19. He made similar comments on Daytona Beach Radio, Joy 106.3 FM, on Wednesday, Nov. 12.

Continuing with the Volusia Matters Podcast interview, Mr. Feacher said, "And so, when you don't have definitive policies in place, you can't truly identify if someone is doing something wrong, or right."

Mr. Feacher is incorrect. Whatever policy that is in place is the definitive policy and is used to decide if someone did something wrong.

And if that policy isn't definitive, that again, falls on Mr. Feacher. It is he who has to, at the very least, ensure periodic policy reviews and then make changes or present suggested changes to the City Commission for approval.

Daytona Beach City Manager Deric C. Feacher speaking with host Donna Gray-Banks on Daytona Beach Radio.

Resident Calls for Deric C. Feacher and some Commissioners to Step Down

That is a sentiment borne of anger and frustration. Reality is, elected politicians hardly ever willingly leave their seats.

I understand the sentiment, but would rather see each commissioner be primaried or challenged in the general election. It would keep them on their toes.

Note: Mr. Feacher's city manager position is not an elected position.

Commissioner Paula R. Reed

"I just feel that we have lost ourselves. Grandstanding, making innuendo not knowing the full context of things and spewing them out on this dais makes us all look bad. It's embarrassing. It really is. We should not be going through this," Commissioner Paula R. Reed said during the Nov. 19 meeting.

At first blush, it seems that Ms. Reed is speaking about the entire commission's behavior. However, the more I thought about it, and watched that portion of the meeting a second time, the more I think she intended for her comments to land on one person, Commissioner Stacy Cantu.

Props to Ms. Reed for being so open.

Commissioner Paula R. Reed, typically joyful, was in no mood to fool around when discussing the P-Card issue.

Commissioner Stacy Cantu

I tip my cap to Ms. Cantu. She has a dogged approach and is the reason the P-Card issue has been brought to the fore.

In conversation with some residents, I noted the extensive research that she does. One of the residents conveyed their belief that she is doing all this to make a run at the mayor's seat in 2028.

More City Manager Deric C. Feacher Comments From The Volusia Matters Podcast

"If I see something where someone is breaking the law, we're going to call the police department. We're not going to try to push this under the rug." Good call there by Mr. Feacher.

But then he stumbled when he said, "If we find somebody that just needs to be disciplined because they're abusing our policy, we'll do that." Note that earlier he said the lack of a definitive policy meant it wasn't possible to tell if "someone is doing something wrong, or right."

Mr. Feacher then went back to acts of criminality. "But if it's a criminal act, it's not about just being disciplined. It's not about a written reprimand or verbal counseling or a one-day suspension. (Hopefully without pay, otherwise, it's a vacation) It's about making sure we file charges on someone who is criminally doing something wrong with the taxpayers' dollars, and that's what we're trying to change here and update our policies."

Conclusion

Every Daytona Beach elected official and city employee is innocent until proven guilty.  The P-Card issue is a mess and looks worse coming after the "beatdown," to use the term Mayor Derrick Henry used, by the state's Joint Legislative Auditing Committee on another financial matter shortly before the P-Card issue hit.

True leaders find ways to straighten out situations like this. Per excellent writing by Eileen Zaffiro-Kean in the Daytona Beach News-Journal, only Ms. Cantu, Commissioners Quanita May and Monica Paris want to raise the P-Card issue to a high priority.

Matters such as this generally result in one person taking the fall (Mr. Feacher?), likely combined with a superficial change to the purchasing guidelines that makes some difference on the margins.  

It'll be interesting to see what happens next.

Addendum

Daytona Beach is my beat, and I had every intention of being at the Wednesday, Nov. 19, meeting to keep on top of the P-Card discussion. I was not able to attend as it was a week of two deadlines, one of which happened to be on Wednesday. The views expressed are my own and are not intended to represent any publication that I work for.

Volusia Matters Podcast

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Photo Credit: City of Daytona Beach

Charles I. Guarria is an author, reporter and host based in the state of Florida, USA, covering any topic, anywhere in the world. His career began in 2009. Mr. Guarria is a three-time winner of Emerald Group Publishing’s Highly Commended Award and host of The Opinion Guy Fun Friendly Informative. He is available for hire to write, research, or beta-read..

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