The troubled purchasing card that many Fayette County employees used to buy incidentals or to pay for travel expenses is a thing of the past.

Commission Chairman Greg Dunn told his fellow commissioners during last Wednesday’s budget hearing that more than $118,000 had been charged by county employees on the card during the past two weeks.

“This was supposed to be used as petty cash,” Dunn said.

Acting Finance Director Mary Holland confirmed the volume of receipts for purchases was “astronomical.” The board voted unanimously to end the program last Friday, but said it would honor travel requests that have already been reserved through June 30.

The card was approved by the board in 2002 as a way of better monitoring expenses, but it gained notoriety in 2005 when it led to the ouster of former County Administrator Chris Cofty.

The Citizen discovered that Cofty spent more than $4,000 for business lunches in 2003 and 2004 and had as his meal guests several high profile persons, including Dunn, former Finance Director Mark Pullium and County Attorney Bill McNally.

The county did not take any disciplinary act against Cofty’s use of the card, but Cofty and the county parted company in February 2005.

The County Commission was aware of the issue and alluded to it in Cofty’s performance evaluation in January 2005.

“While reviewing information in preparation to evaluate Chris Cofty’s performance for calendar year 2004, documentation has been located concerning certain reimbursements from Fayette County to Chris Cofty,” the evaluation reads.

Because of the concern, the commission decided not to increase Cofty’s salary that year and launched an investigation into the matter.

A month later, Cofty was gone in what was then described by the commission tersely as a mutual decision to part company.

“We went back two years and looked at the issue. There’s no real one thing that’s indictable, but sometimes you just have to go in a different way,” said Dunn.