Collection of Procurement Cards at State Parks Requested as Widespread Abuse is Found

             Frankfort, KY: On February 27th, Governor Ernie Fletcher requested that procurement cards issued in the Department of Parks be collected as widespread waste and abuse of these cards were found. Also, today, the Governor asked all other Cabinet Secretaries to investigate the use of procurement cards within their agencies. Since July 1, 2003, procurement cards have accounted for 12,833 transactions totaling $1,260,709 in purchases in the Parks Department alone. Apart from the Parks Department having no purchasing control over items purchased, prices paid, etc., there is an additional cost of labor (lost time/productivity) and travel incurred by the state.

             The original purpose of the Procurement Card was to "empower" management to take care of immediate purchasing needs' emergencies. The intent of this program was soon forgotten as cards were distributed to park employees below the supervisory level. One example of this abuse is 98 personal printers which have been purchased with procurement cards. These printers were added to the Parks computer network with no warranty or support available. Also, one park was found to have eight different maintenance workers who had their own individual procurement card.

            "Coming from the private sector, we did all we could to reduce the number of frivolous and "emergency" purchases," said George Ward, Commissioner of the Department of Parks. "It appears the use of procurement cards at State Parks has been abused, and we will work to rectify this situation, as well as weed out other wasteful expenditures in the future." 

            On February 27th, the Commerce Cabinet began to collect 290 cards with 74 remaining across the state to be used with controlled guidelines. Of the remaining cards, three have been left at central office (1 per office floor), two at each resort park (Park Manager, Business Manager), and one at each Recreational Park (Park Manager). If extra cards are requested, they will be issued through the Accounting Office with the approval of Commissioner George Ward.

            "I ran for Governor to end wasteful spending and fiscal irresponsibility in Frankfort that has held Kentucky back for far too long," stated Governor Ernie Fletcher. "The excess use of procurement cards is just one example of the waste and abuse prevalent in state government, and we will continue to work diligently to uncover more instances of the misuse of Kentucky's tax dollars."

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