Comptroller Recommends Update

County Reviews Written Credit Card Policy

BENTONVILLE — A small problem with some of the 67 credit cards available to Benton County elected officials and employees has prompted a look at a written policy for use of the cards.

Sarah Daniels, county comptroller, presented a credit card policy to the Quorum Court’s Personnel Committee when the panel met Monday. The justices of the peace endorsed the proposal and sent it to the Committee of the Whole for further discussion.

At A Glance

Credit Card Controls

Credit cards issued to Benton County elected officials and employees are limited in their use, and the county is taking steps to ensure those rules are observed. Sarah Daniels, comptroller, said the county is working with the banks that issue credit cards to have merchant code information added to the accounts. When anyone attempts to use a county credit card in a type of business or for a specific purchase that's not authorized, the transaction will be blocked.

Source: Staff Report

Daniels said the county apparently has operated without any written policy. County Clerk Tena O’Brien agreed and said she couldn't find any policy in county records in her office.

“I think we just operated under some general guidelines that everybody had agreed to,” O’Brien said.

Daniels said credit card use and lack of written guidelines came to light recently when the Sheriff’s Office spent an unusually large part of the department’s uniform allowance for the year.

“Every year they have a specific amount authorized for uniforms in their budget,” Daniels said. “They’ve had that every year, but this year they front loaded that and used about 70 percent of their budget for the year in the first three months. That caught the attention of someone in the Accounting Department.”

Daniels said the Sheriff’s Office used a different credit card for the 2013 clothing purchases and spent money in different stores, which raised more questions.

Sheriff Kelley Cradduck agreed his office needed guidelines for using the credit cards but said he wasn’t aware there were none. He said he's finding other areas without policy guidelines.

“There are a lot of things, lots of policies that need to be adjusted or put into place,” Cradduck said. “Right now, I’m working on an off-duty and take-home policy that will govern what’s expected of our people, that you’ll be armed, where you can and can’t go. It’s obvious to me that we need one. I just think former sheriffs didn’t think it was necessary.”

Daniels said the Sheriff’s Office has 26 of the county’s 67 credit cards. Cradduck said he has so many employees who must travel for training and in the line of duty the cards are a necessity. He said adopting a written policy should help employees and the county.

“It’s not been abused since I’ve been here,” Cradduck said of the credit cards. “But having a policy will protect us, not only from intentional abuse, but from other issues. It’s a credit card. It could get stolen or come up missing.”

Daniels said the credit cards are issued to elected officials and department heads for employee use or kept in the Accounting Department to be issued as needed.

Assessor Bear Chaney said his office has a single credit card he keeps for his operation and employees.

“I keep that in my pocket,” Chaney said. “I’ll use it for gas if I am out of town and can’t find a station that accepts the Fuel Man cards we have. I’ve got a guy in the office taking an online class for continuing education credits, and we used the credit card for that. It’s just $32, and it’s the simplest way to pay it. If we go somewhere to a class for training we’ll use it for that. But that’s about it.”

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