Wednesday, December 5, 2001
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Wednesday, December 5, 2001 |
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Purchase cards for county workers? Talks on tap today By DAVE
HAMRICK
Fayette County commissioners will take another look today at a proposal that would put purchase cards into the hands of county workers. The commission meets at 3:30 p.m. at the County Administrative Complex. Representatives of Wachovia, the bank that handles Fayette's accounts, pitched the idea in October as a means of increasing efficiency and accountability. The purchase cards would be similar to the ATM/debit cards used by many individual bank customers. "It will save you time, money, effort and a whole list of things," said Ingrid Kelly, senior sales officer for Wachovia. Purchase cards like the ones she is proposing, Kelly said, have numerous high-tech controls on them so they can't be easily abused. A county official can be authorized to spend a given amount of money per month, and a different amount per transaction, and the card can be set up to pay for expenditures only in authorized categories, she said. So a worker authorized to purchase only office supplies wouldn't be able to use the card for travel, she said. The cards also could be electronically linked to the county budget, so a department would be forced to stay within prescribed limits, said Kelly, adding that workers would have to keep receipts and those receipts would have to be randomly audited to prevent abuse. Because it eliminates the physical costs of receiving invoices and mailing checks, along with the costs of employees who have to be involved in such transactions, the purchase card can cut the cost of a purchase from an average of $50 - $150 to an average of $15 - $25, she said. During the October meeting, commissioners weren't quite ready to buy the actual estimates, which are industry averages, but agreed the cards could reduce costs and free up the time of some workers. "There's millions and millions of dollars saved by the federal government because of programs like this," said commission Chairman Greg Dunn. But Commissioner A.G. VanLandingham asked that Fayette's own Finance Department study its procedures and come up with estimates of actual savings that could be expected, rather than using Wachovia's industry averages. "I would ask that we table it until a later time and get some figures that we can deal with," he said. Finance director Mark Pullium said he would come up with those figures, but promised, "It would save us hundreds of paper transactions a month."
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