Okay, Madam Clerk, are we ready?

Yes, ma'am.

All righty.

Thank you.

We will call this meeting to order.

Then Finance and Economic Development standing committee of council.

Madam Clerk, if you would uh take care of the order of evacuation from the chamber.

Upon activation of the emergency and law signal, all persons should immediately exit the building.

Please use the exits to the left or right front of the council chamber or the north or west stairwells outside of the rear doors of the chamber.

Do not use elevators or escalators.

At the exit in the building, security would direct everyone down 9th Street to the fenced area located between Clay and Lee Streets.

Fair to hear to the guidelines may result in speakers forfeiting any meaning time and further discipline action as necessary, which could include bar from attendance from barber is from attendance at future meetings of the committee for a period of six months.

Seeing none, the public comment period is now closed.

Approval of the minutes.

To the agenda, Madam Clerk.

So take um agenda item one has been requested to be continued if I can get a motion to that effect.

Summold second.

And that was for 30 days.

Okay.

The committee is voting on the motion to continue item one ordinance 2026 081 to the July 15th, 2026 financing economic development standing committee meeting.

Vice Chair Jones.

Aye.

Chair Robinson.

Aye.

And motion has been approved.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

We'll move to agenda item number six, and then we'll follow the print order of the agenda and take agenda item number eight and nine as a block.

Item six, resolution 2026 R019 to authorize the council's organic organizational development standing committee to investigate the city's failure to publish a monthly payment register as required by city code and application of exclusions allowed under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.

That pay was before the committee.

Thank you.

Around that same time, there were multiple media stories about that involved some financial misuse, including P card payments and and charges from the fire department and in the electoral department.

And so the city said that the reason why they had taken it down was that it was too difficult to publish.

If you recall, I had also made a similar request during our budget development process.

I believe would also kind of go up to current, so it would have more current data.

And it would be limited to just those redactions that ahead of voting to reduce what is publicly available, essentially, you know, reducing the council would have additional visibility.

That we would do our due diligence in reviewing the documentation.

It's my belief that the uh the process by which to do the redactions is not that difficult.

Um that it could be pretty simply done programmatically by department.

For instance, you know, particular DSS payments that's been flagged.

So that could be done with the simple formula, you know, based on the account codes and and such to ensure that those types of reductions, redactions are taken care of.

Um, it's a pretty straightforward export, you know, out of uh whatever the uh ERP system that the city uses, I believe Oracle.

Um, you know, it's it is not a lot of work, and and what it gets us is is a lot more trust from the community who um who are very interested to ensure that the city is spending um those public dollars wisely and also uh you know, and an extra set of eyes as as we are um ensuring that the city is working as efficiently as it should.

And hope to have your support on the paper, and um I'm open to any questions that you have.

Thank you, Ms.

Gibson.

We will come back, I'm sure with questions, maybe.

Um but at this time I will have a public hearing on the paper, Madam Clerk, and we will also ask a council chief of staff to address the committee as it relates to procedural processes as it relates to doing an investigation.

Madam Clerk, let's have a public hearing at this time.

Is there anyone that would like to speak in opposition to item six?

Is there anyone that would like to speak of support to item six?

He's a post a podium and state your name for the record.

Good afternoon.

My name is Amante Gonzalo, and I live in the sixth district.

I'm here today to voice my support for resolution 2026-R019.

Before we try to change what is shown, we should investigate why the city has failed so far with the current ordinance, at least we fail again.

Standards and best practices are very important, but only when they elevate and conform to your values.

If we look at the mayoral action plan values, specifically integrity, excellence, and equity, I do not believe ordinance 2026-081 is completely compliant.

Integrity.

If we welcome accountability, then it would only make sense to make it as easy as possible to find this information.

So casting the widest net so the most amount of people possible can look at it, make sure everything is above board.

Excellence.

Instead of striving for excellence, we're looking at other localities that apparently are less transparent than what we have on the books and lowering ourselves to what they do.

Equity.

Some amount of this information would be obtainable from FOIA.

But this year, Richmond earned the City of Darkness Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation in Muck Rock because of the system we have for FOIA.

FOIA might have might also have costs associated with it for information that should already be public.

And who, of course, is most obviously affected by this?

People with lives, people with kids, people who probably can't come to a 2 p.m.

meeting on Wednesday.

Before we lower transparency, I think it is owed to the residents of the city to make sure we have all the information straight.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Public hearing is now closed.

Bring it back to the committee.

Mr.

Warren.

Yes, may it please the committee RJ Warren, Council Chief of Staff, to provide some context of what would be responsible of the Council Chief of Staff's Office if this resolution were to be adopted.

It puts the authority into the organizational development standing committee to initiate this investigation.

So it would be the full body of nine in that committee, and both myself and your council staff would be acting at the direction of the nine members of that committee.

So, for instance, if you all requested certain documentation from uh any entity, we would facilitate that request on your behalf and then provide that information to you.

If you were to request anyone to come and uh be available for questioning or provide testimony to that committee, we would help facilitate the arrival of that individual or individuals and any other hypothetical situations, we would just have to wait and see what the uh the direction would be of the actual committee.

But those are some examples of what we would be responsible for.

We would be acting at the direction of the committee and council members, with consultation with the city attorney's office, of course.

So if I'm hearing you correctly, um the full committee of council will if this paper is passed, um, indicate the kinds of information that we're going to need to do the investigation, and your staff will facilitate that process of getting that information and also holding um investigative hearings with administration staff as it relates to the information as well.

Is that correct?

If that's what the organizational development committee requests, yes.

And if um if for some reason we don't get the information that we need, uh, what would be the next step that we would need to take to carry out the investigation?

If there is a refusal to meet the request of the committee for documentation or testimony, um then the body could make a um an action, rather that be maybe through a motion to uh take legal action to request that information.

And legal action would consist of what?

I believe a subpoena request.

I believe a subpoena request.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

Is that your understanding as well as to the process that would be followed to do an investigation?

Oh, Tori Cotton, assistant city attorney.

Can you bring your mic down a little bit so I can hear you?

Tori Cottman, assistant city attorney.

That is my initial understanding, but we would do more research to confirm that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Warren.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh, bring it back to the committee.

Um we can there's a paper in regards to the same subject matter, not the same intent.

Uh, that we just continued.

Because the administration of the administration requests um, and so um, I will entertain a motion as to how we want to proceed.

I do think that it's important that this is very important legislation.

Um, and I think we need to do get this right.

We need to make sure that the reports that we get from the administration, uh, consistent, they are timely, and they meet the uh legislative requirement of the body.

Um I think the request Ms.

Gibson has made as it relates to the investigation is very serious and should be taken, um, very seriously as it relates to getting the information that has not been provided previously, but I do think that equally important what we get and what we depend upon has to come from the administration.

So trying to get us on the same page is equally as important to me as well as to how we proceed.

So Ms.

Jones, with that, I'll entertain a motion.

Thank you, madam chair.

Um, I concur with your statements relative to both papers.

It is always hard when it's two papers of this, you know, trying to compete in papers, trying to um collectively uh address the needs of the city, specifically as it relates to transparency and all of those um concerns from the public, rightfully so, but then also from the council side, as you noted, to have to even put in papers to ask for things.

Um, I do think though, given the nature of these papers that we move to continue, not because we are um whatever is going to be presented, I think it's the 2025 numbers.

I do think that we need to ensure moving forward before we adopt the second paper, if it gets adopted, that it we may not need to make changes or anything of that effect.

So I move that we continue.

Um to next finance committee meeting in hopes that what comes out essentially aligns with what is being asked, and if not, we can make recommendations in the next meeting.

Okay, I'll second that motion, and what that means is that both of these papers will be on the next finance committee meeting agenda, and they will be on the agenda, uh, Madam Clerk, as the first two items on the agenda up front.

Call the question, Madam Clerk.

The committee is voting on the motion to continue item six resolution 2026 R019 to the July 15th, 2026 Finance and Economic Development Standing Committee meeting.

Vice Chair Jones, aye, Chair Robertson, aye.

That motion has been approved.

Thank you, Madam Clark.

Uh, we'll move to agenda item number two on the agenda Madam Clark, please.

Item two, ordinance 2026 130 to authorize the CAO to accept funds of 69,920 from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, African American Cemetery and Graves Fund, and to amend the FY 2526 special fund budget by creating a new special fund for the Department of Parks Recreation Community Facilities called the Historic African American Cemetery Special Fund for the purpose of providing funding for preservation, maintenance, and stewardship activities at historically African American cemeteries.

That papers before the committee.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

We have a public hearing on this paper.

Is there anyone that would like to speak in opposition to item two?

Opposition to item two.

Speaking opposition?

No.

Support.

Okay.

Is there anyone that would like to speak in support of item two?

Yes, ma'am.

You may state your name for the record.

My name is Kimberly Jackson.

I am the community engagement manager for cemeteries with parks, recreation, and community facilities.

And I would just ask you guys to request the acceptance of the 69,920 of funding that is being awarded from the Department of Historic Resources.

This funding is to continue the reclamation and preservation of the city's African American Historic Cemeteries.

This funding will be used to do things such as complete burial pot enclosure repairs, complete endangered grave marker and monument repairs, and do some property delineation.

So I do ask that you review and accept this.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else that would like to speak in support?

Seeing none, the public hearing is now closed.

Bring it back to the committee.

Motion.

Uh-huh.

Madam Clerk, I move that we forward to council for approval.

Second.

The committee is rolling on the motion to forward item two ordinance 2026 130 to council with the recommendation to approve.

Vice Chair Jones.

Aye.

Chair Robertson.

Aye.

That motion has been approved.

Agenda item three, Madam Clark.

Item three, ordinance 2026-130 to authorize the CAO to accept funds in the amount of 611,807.50 cents from the National Opioid Settlement Fund resulting from settlement agreements with settling distributors and to amend ordinance number 2025 057 by increasing revenues and the amount appropriated to the Department of Neighborhood and Community Services, National Opioid Settlement Special Fund for the purpose of funding opioid abatement and remediation strategies to combat the opioid crisis.

That papers are for the committee.

Madam Clerk, we'll move to public hearing on this paper, please.

Is there anyone that would like to speak in opposition to item three?

Is there anyone that would like to speak in support to item three?

Seeing none of public hearing is now closed, bring it back to the committee.

Madam Clerk, I move that we forward the council for approval.

Second.

The committee is going on the motion to forward item three, ordinance 2026 130 to council with the recommendation 131 to council with the recommendation to approve.

Vice Chair Jones.

Aye.

That motion has been approved.

Um Madam Clerk move to agenda item number four.

We can proceed into the public hearing after the reading.

Item four, ordinance 2026 132 to authorize the CAO to accept funds in the amount of one million dollars from the National Park Service Land and Water Conservation Fund and to amend the FY2526 special fund budget by creating a new special fund for the Department of Parks Recreation and Community Facilities entitled Broadrock Creek Grant Special Fund for the purpose of providing funding for improving access to and installing amenities at Broad Rock Creek Park.

That papers before the committee.

We will now open the floor for public hearing.

Is there anyone here that would like to speak in opposition to item four?

Is there anyone that would like to speak a support to item four?

Seeing none, the public hearing is now closed.

Bring it back to the committee.

Madam Chair, I move that way forward to council for approval.

Second.

The committee is going on the motion to forward item four, ordinance 2026 132 to council with the recommendation to approve.

Vice Chair Jones.

Aye.

Chair Robertson.

Aye.

That motion has been approved.

Madam Clerk.

As to agenda item number seven, followed by the public hearing.

Number seven or number five.

Thank you.

Number five?

Yes, ma'am.

I'm sorry.

No, you're fine.

Item five, ordinance 2026-133 to authorize the CAO to execute a right of entry agreement between the city and capital trees for the purpose of performing tree improvements and bird park located at 1401 Pump House Drive, 2601 Police Memorial Way, and 2301 Amelia Street.

That papers are for the committee.

Is there anyone that would like to speak in opposition to item five?

Is there anyone that would like to speak in support to item five?

Seeing none, a public hearing is now closed, bring it back to the committee.

Madam Clerk.

Yeah, I move that we forward to council for approval.

Second.

The committee is voting on the motion to forward item five, ordinance 2026 133 to council with the recommendation to approve.

Vice Chair Jones.

Aye.

Chair Robertson.

Aye.

That motion has been approved.

Okay.

Now let's do seven.

Followed with the public hearing.

Item seven, ordinance 2026-148 to authorize the CAO to accept funds of 150,000 from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services and to amend the FY25-26 Special Fund Budget by creating a new special fund for the Richmond Recovery Court Court entitled Barn Cap Barring State Criminal Justice Improvement Program Grant Special Fund for the purpose of providing funding to combat the public health crisis caused by escalating substance abuse, opioid use disorders, and opioid related overdose.

That papers are for the committee.

We will now open the full for public hearing.

Is there anyone that would like to speak in opposition to item seven?

Is there anyone that would like to speak in support to item seven?

Seeing none of public hearing is now closed, bring it back to the committee.

I move that we forward to council for approval.

Vice Chair Jones.

Aye.

Chair Robertson.

Aye.

That motion has been approved.

Madam Clerk, uh agenda item number eight and nine, followed with the public hearing, please.

Item eight, ordinance 2026-149 to amend city code concerning definitions related to public procurement, and item nine, ordinance 2026-150 to amend city code concerning joint and cooperative procurement for the purpose of conforming the city's cooperative procurement laws to the optional provisions of a VA VA code.

Those papers are before the committee.

We would now open a full for public hearing.

Is there anyone that would like to speak in opposition to items eight or nine?

Is there anyone that would like to speak in support to items eight and nine?

Seeing none of public hearing is now closed, bring it back to the committee.

Um I move that we forward uh agenda item eight and nine to council for approval.

Second, the committee is voting on the motion to forward item eight, ordinance 2026 149, and item nine, ordinance 2026 150 um to council with the recommendation to approve.

Vice Chair Jones, aye.

Chair Robertson.

Aye.

That motion has been approved.

Gender item number 10, Madam Clerk.

Item 10, ordinance 2026 151 to amend city code concerning the evaluation and expiration of the partial exemption of certain rehabilitated commercial or industrial structures from real estate taxation for the purpose of extending the expiration date from June 30th, 2026 to June 30th, 2027.

That papers before the committee.

We will now open a full for public hearing.

Is there anyone that would like to speak in opposition to item 10?

Is there anyone that would like to speak in support to item 10?

Seeing none of public hearing is now closed.

Bring it back to the committee.

I move that way forward to council for approval.

Second, the committee is going on the motion to forward item 10, ordinance 2026 151 to council with the recommendation to approve.

Vice Chair Jones.

Aye.

Chair Robertson.

Aye.

That motion has been approved.

Ms.

Gibson, your light is on.

Are you trying to ask a question?

Um this is just one that I mean I was curious to get more information on obviously if the body has made the decision to forward, but um, I would I'd be curious to get more information about it.

Yeah, okay, alrighty.

All right, then with that, please forward them to um committee staff person as well.

Make sure that you get that information.

I'm sorry, I didn't recognize your light previously.

Thank you.

All right, Madam Clerk, we'll move to the next.

I can't hear already voted on this stuff.

All right, we will move to the presentation, madam clerk.

Uh on the PCARD program.

Um, we did get uh some comments back from the staff on that.

If the staff would like to elaborate on their review prior to the presentation, that would be fine at this time.

This um gives.

If there is any comments prior to the presentation from staff, we'll listen to we'll entertain those at this time as well.

If not, um Mr.

Donald.

Well, good after it is after.

Good afternoon, council.

Uh listen, I just wanted to uh introduce an extraordinarily dynamic team who've done some really good work here uh recently to continue or to move us along the path of continuous quality improvement.

That has been a real focus of the mayor, and I think the PCART is just one testament to our overhaul of financial services.

While you'll be hearing from Director Almaraz, who is our leader in this department.

I also want to recognize that uh, you know, Miss Jody and Scott, those two leaders are kind of the unsung heroes of making sure that we are coordinating and improving on our processes.

So I just wanted to take a moment to just recognize their leadership along with many other folks in the procurement department leading the charge.

Before handing it over to the director, just wanted to, you know, highlight a few things.

I think one uh this is a process that is continuous, and today's update, I'm hoping is just the first of a few that we bring to council uh in both the spirit of transparency, but also these positive updates of the good work that is happening to ensure that our services to Richmonders just improve and become better.

And I'll just give you a quick highlight that over the last year, I remember I'm coming up on one year, and one of the first things that uh was put in the lap was, you know, some procurement challenges uh that went across departments.

And I think the mayor uh without having a permanent CAO really stepped in and made the ultimate and positive decision to just shrink the program and ensure that we could grab put our arms around it and be prepared for what's next.

And over time, you know, this team has really taken the bull by the horns and made sure that we are not only growing the program appropriately and responsibly, but putting in metrics and measures so that we are able to really ensure that again we're managing this process.

We've used the audit as a management tool versus just simple correction.

And so I'm really excited about the leadership and want to welcome uh the director to give you a deep dive on these activities.

Thank you, sir.

Uh Renee Almarez, Director of Procurement Services.

Uh thank you for having me today.

Uh we're gonna be talking about the uh PCAR program overhaul and update.

Uh I'll also have Scott Lyons, Deputy Director for Contracts.

Suka Chanski, she is our deputy director for operations, and Jody Phillips here, she's the PCARD supervisor.

So we're gonna run through this and uh we'll have time for questions at the end, or if you have questions during the uh presentation, by all means let me know.

So, uh the need for a program reset as the uh CAO was saying.

Uh the audit uh department conducted um a large audit on the PCART program as well as some other areas of the uh of the department and uh issued a 60-page auto report with 16 complex audit recommendations and 58 action items, which were part of those.

Uh these are some of the areas uh around policy deficiencies, system weaknesses that they've identified, oversight and leadership gaps, many control failures uh in our processes, and we were understaffed.

We had one person uh reviewing uh the entire program.

So this was a uh it was a deep audit, it was a thorough audit, and uh we uh we really appreciated the look.

So um the immediate actions we took, um, as the CAO said was that we did a reset immediately before the audit was uh issued.

We suspended and restructuring restructuring the program, uh paused the vast majority of PCARD activity and started a comprehensive review.

As he mentioned, we reduced cards from 320 cards at the time to 67.

We're now sitting at 73 active cards.

We blocked uh certain areas of usage, including food, travel, Amazon on a citywide basis, uh, except for some narrowly uh approved areas that we would look at individually.

We also started a mandatory critical P Card purchase request form for every purchase that was going to be on a PCAR.

Uh we had all city staff utilize that form, get it approved before any P Card purchase was made.

We partnered with a firm uh to do data analytics, they are card integrity.

They're working with us developing dashboards, they're flagging issues such as policy violations, um, merchant anomalies, um, split transactions if any split transactions pop up, and and uh they've given us a good and deeper look into the data behind uh the PCAR that comes out of uh our our uh the Bank of America program works.

So uh that's the system that we use to uh to run the program.

I think uh to even dive deeper to ensure that we had the right program aligned with the city.

Uh my team evaluated uh programs from JP Morgan Chase and U.S.

Bank, uh, which also offered PCARD programs, and we determined that Bank of America provided the best controls, and then uh we weren't gonna see a lot of improvement if we moved to uh to another to another bank.

So, this is the status of recommendations.

There were 16 of them, and as you can see, under each one, there's sub-what I'd call them managerial uh recommendations for us to for us to work.

Um basically items three through six, eight through 11, and 13 through 16 are closed right now.

Items one, two, and seven have been submitted uh to the auditor for closure, and we're working on the last one, which is item 12.

But this is the status in the presentation of each of those, each of those uh recommendations.

So there's item 12 pending submission.

We're uh we're working on that one right now, and the rest 13 through 16 are closed.

So, the status of recommendations right now, we're sitting at 75% closure, 19% that have been submitted for closure, and six percent or one recommendation, which is pending submission right now.

We haven't submitted it yet, we're still working on it.

The goal of this reset and the overhaul was to make sure that this program stands as a model of efficiency and responsibility for transparent municipal operations.

We believe we built a very solid uh and just an exceptional program now.

Now we'll talk about how we go through this program, what we're gonna be doing in the near future and the and the long term, but we've uh done some uh a lot of work.

My team has done a lot of work to stand to restand this program back up to overhaul it and get it uh get it on the right track.

So as we relaunch, we've strengthened controlled, we've enhanced training, uh expanded support to make sure this program is successful.

We did a total revision of policy 15, which is the PCARD policy.

We've expanded our team, we had one person.

Now we have three people in that uh subdepartment for uh for the PCARD team.

Uh we've updated resources, new forms, violation tracking tool, progress tracker.

All of our forms now are on my COR, uh on the MyCOR site.

Used to be um well, it's the My COR site now.

So uh we've again, yes ma'am.

Uh let me interrupt you a moment here.

Um do we have a copy of your presentation?

Oh, sorry.

Did you bring a copy for the presentation?

I did not bring copies of the presentation.

Okay.

Um, we don't have copies of the presentation.

Yeah, I think it's a pretty big deal.

Um, and before you proceed with your presentation, um that's roll back to those previous slides.

Fortunately, without a copy in front of me, um, let's see.

Go back to, yeah, the items from recommendation, each one of the recommendations that you are saying is closed.

Um I think for the benefit of us fully understanding what was the status, um, and what those closures are, what actions was taken to make those closure would be important for us to get the detail on it.

So I appreciate the fact that your report is saying that they are close, but I think the committee needs to better understand what the what were the findings and what actions was taken in order to get to a place of closure.

So if we can go back to starting with recommendation number one and go through those, that would be helpful.

So the ones that are closed uh were submitted to the city auditor.

They reviewed the documentation.

Uh we use their their process, their forms, their documentation, provided that information on what we've changed, what we've updated, what we've implemented, uh and they uh return back that uh that particular recommendation would be closed.

Uh, the ones submitted for uh closure, uh items one and two on this page here, have been again submitted with the uh city auditors' recommendations, not recommendations, city auditors documentation, uh to address each one of those actions required.

Uh and uh right now they're um they're reviewing they're reviewing that information uh currently.

And then that one recommendation item 12, recommendation 12.

We have not yet submitted that.

We're still working on the uh on the solution, and then we will bring that to the city auditor using again their forms and documentations.

So let me ask you a question on recommendation number one.

Um the action that was requested is to update the policies, develop training program, establish criteria for the card, reactivation, and you're saying that those things have been done and they've been submitted to the auditor, and what you submitted to the auditor, uh was sufficient enough that the auditor actually agreed that those things are in place and have been closed.

They have been submitted to the auditor.

If they determine that what we have done is sufficient for closure, they will let us know if what they they determined that we haven't submitted enough, or we have to have a discussion about some of the uh actions required where we're you know just to get clarification or to make sure that we're moving down the right path on these actions, we'll have discussions with them, uh and they'll submit that back to us, and then we can we can update it, um, continue our actions towards closure, but right now it's under review with the uh with the city auditor, that uh item one.

The other ones that are to say closing.

So when you say closure, I'm not to understand that the auditor has agreed that the recommendation had based on what you have submitted, has the requirements have been met.

What you're saying is that just for my clarification, is that you have submitted to the auditor based on the recommendation of number one, and therefore, because the submitted has been done, it is closed.

No, it's not.

Recommendation one is not closed.

Recommendation has been submitted, they'll look they're evaluating it right now, and they will make the determination whether they believe this is closed, and if they have questions, we'll have some uh discussions around it.

Recommendation three, just to show the difference, that was submitted to the auditor, and the auditor agreed that we uh completed all of those actions required, they were turned back that this item is now closed.

So the ones submitted for closure are have they been submitted?

They haven't been dispositioned to closed yet, but uh we're hoping they will be.

Okay, all right.

So item number one has been submitted for but not closed.

That's correct.

Item three has been submitted and closed, yes, as approved by the auditor.

Yes, okay.

Item four, five, and six are also closed through the auditor.

Items four, five, and six.

So let me ask you a question.

Is there a standard um revised policies or procedures that have been written to administer the PCAT that aligns with the action that had been taken and approved?

Yes.

And that how do how do we access that information?

It's on our it's on our my COR site, it's in our policies and procedures section on that site.

It was formerly Starnet, now it's uh a My COR site.

Yes, okay.

So all of our policies, all the DPS policies, as well as SOPs and other documentations uh is located out on uh the MyCOR site, and it's accessible to the city.

And is there a part, is there any process, anything in process that validates what has been approved by the I to reaffirming that all of those policies have been approved by the administration, as well as any way of us balancing it.

You say you have three people now.

Tell me one person, I can't believe that one person, no wonder we get in trouble.

Um, I mean, what's the what's the check and balance?

What what require what is required?

Is one person have the authority to authorize payment?

How many signatures are required to authorize payment on PCAR?

So the a P card holder will make a purchase.

Just wanted to try to abbreviate this real quick.

A P Card holder will make a purchase.

Within that department.

There's an approver that approves that purchase.

Once this person, once the P Guard holder has reconciled, put their information into the work system, Bank of America Works, right, with receipts and documentation, and then it goes to their approver.

Their approver reviews it, either approves or sends it back for correction or whatever, approves it, and then we will validate that all of that happened.

And we had one person covering many, many transactions, you know, last year before last year for several years, and it was just it was an overwhelming task.

So, and then there were issues with uh, you know, purchases and the approving process in departments as well.

And now we so now we have additional people uh that are reviewing each transaction.

We've also reduced the cards from 320.

Now they're at 73.

So the the universe of cards has shrunk quite a bit.

The transactions, we limited a lot of transactions and uh the ability to purchase from different uh different categories, if you will, uh, over the past year or so.

And now we're at a point to where we're going to be evaluating the program as is, and I was gonna walk through the the process here.

Um we're gonna evaluate the program as is and make make decisions about how we need to either grow the program or keep it as is.

Uh and the city has to meet certain metrics for that to happen.

So I was gonna talk to that as we go forward, but that's the uh right.

I just I just wanted to make sure that I'm clear on your recommendations and what close mean versus those that have not been closed.

So we'll go you may proceed with your presentation.

Okay, thank you.

Am I going the right way?

There we go.

So again, 12 are closed, three submitted for closure, they're pending closure, and one is pending submission.

We haven't yet submitted it.

That's that item 12.

So as I was saying, uh we expanded our team.

Um we've uh brought in that company card integrity to help us with data analytics to provide reports to look at uh purchases, um, and to flag any uh problematic areas, and we to did a total overhaul on policy 15, which is available for use right now.

Um we've uh also enhanced training.

So we've had training for all card holders all and all approvers.

Uh we've held that training and uh you know via the city auditor.

You know, he stated that it's some of the best training that he's seen in local government ever.

So we've really tried to raise the bar around some of the activities, how we're doing it.

We brought in a national uh a national organization, a procurement organization to consult with to help develop the policy, redo the policy to make sure that we're hitting the right marks using benchmarks and using national standards for for this program.

Some of the policy changes, and I'm gonna just go through some of the uh some of the changes that we have.

There's a there's a few slides that talk to some of these changes.

So again, we have a new P Card policy, there's a new discretionary spend policy, which establishes um allowable or unallowable uses of P cards and city funds.

So those are two policies that have been in place.

We have travel bill restrictions, you cannot use your P Card for meals during travel.

Uh we've revealed up some payment platform rules.

We are not using Venmo anymore.

Uh we're only going to use Square and PayPal.

And this was a big, this is a big item in the audit, you know, uh, because sometimes the receipts coming back are not detailed enough to validate what was actually purchased purchase.

So uh we've really limited those payment platforms, uh, with tracking violations uh with all documentations, um, and they may result in disciplinary action.

Um department heads, agency heads are permit are uh prohibited from being card holders, so directors will not be card holders, and uh and then we have um there's a mandatory pre-approval before purchases.

That's still a form, it's not that critical purchase form, but we have a sample form and departments can use their own form.

But as they reconcile all of their all of their purchases, that form needs to be part of that reconciliation process.

Case in point, we have a we have a new uh contract with Hertz car rental, right?

Uh we want, and it's a citywide contract, we're administering it in DPS.

We're setting that up, and we're gonna have some training for everybody so that they can utilize that contract rather than just going out to enterprise or AWS or budget or go to Hertz and not use the contract, but we're trying to drive it to so they can get discounted rates and the benefits of using a city contract.

So check again, checking to make sure that existing contracts uh are available.

If not, use the PCAR, card holder reconciliation.

Card holder uh reconciliation went from five days after the billing period ends, right?

Five days after the billing period to just five days after the purchase is made.

So you need to reconcile five days after purchase.

Gotta be on top of your books, gotta be on top of your purchases.

Approvers have five days to reconcile once the cardholder is reconciled.

So they'll receive a notice, they have five days to complete that as well.

We've changed the approver authority standards.

Um an approver must hold a higher position than the cardholder in the departmental hierarchy, and uh you can only have three cardholders if you're an approver.

We had um prior to this uh overhaul reset and such uh prior to the audit.

Uh there were a lot of uh there were there's there were instances where where card holders uh we had approvers with many, many uh, you know, 10, 15 card holders.

It was overwhelming for the approver to keep track of that information.

So we're scaling it back, scaling it down, and the rule is no more than three uh going forward.

Training.

So we've totally, as I was saying, we totally revamped training, it's in NeoGov.

Um policy 15, the PCARD policy.

There's a training and a knowledge check for everybody, so there's a test afterwards, reconciliation training for cardholders, there's reconciliation for approvers, there's fraud indication indicator training for approvers that we built, and then uh conflict of interest acknowledgement for both approvers and for card holders as well.

Annual refresher training is mandatory, and again, like I said, it's in NeoGov and it's tracked, and it's and we assign it as uh you know they come up on their annual need to take training or their new card holder or new approver.

So we got a hundred percent complete training for card holders and proxies, uh, up to 145 people took those uh courses and took their tests, they've um and they completed their testing.

This was a reconciliation training, conflict conflict of interest and the overall PCARD training.

So that was for card holders.

We did it as well for approvers, it's 100% complete.

So we're in this 90-day period now where we've soft relaunched the program.

We're keeping this program uh static, stable for 90 days.

We're not adding any cards.

Um, we're not requiring that critical purchase form anymore.

You are allowed to use for food and travel within policy guidelines.

So these are the metrics that we're going to use if we want to expand the program.

Um we've had everybody complete training and pass their tests.

So they're at 100% there.

Transaction compliance.

Purchases have to follow established policies and procedures.

If you're not following it, if we don't reach a 90% goal of that, of that metric, um, you know, we will not move forward.

All of these metrics need to happen.

Okay.

So documentation compliance, they have to have all the receipts and supporting documentation when they're recon reconciling the five-day rule, right?

For reconciliation for cardholders, the five-day rule for reconciliation for approvers.

They have to meet that as well.

So those are uh those are areas in which uh we need to ensure that uh the cardholders are are doing it.

And I missed uh it was 90% cardholder reconciliation, 90% approval reconciliation above the bar as 98% for transaction compliance and 95 for documentation compliance.

Finally, no more than a five percent rate of any violations on using a P Card.

So all of these, all of these requirements, all of these metrics need to be met by the city as a whole, not by any specific department, and they can move forward and get new P cards.

The city as a whole needs to meet these requirements, and we may consider and start evaluating whether new P cards in a particular department would be issued.

So these are the gates that during this period, this 90-day period, that the uh that the city is going to evaluate and make sure that we meet the gates before program expansion occurs.

This is the team, Jody Phillips, Wendellyn Douglas, Matt Farrell.

Uh those are the three individuals on the PCARD team.

And uh that point I am the presentation is complete.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you so much.

Um, sure, no problem.

Presentation um in a formal life, I was in procurement.

It is a beast.

Um, and so thank you for bringing forward.

Um, I know standing here, you know, talking about all of what was revealed, you know, during the audit can be a little challenging, but in if you understand procurement and recognize um at a systems level, you know, what it really requires, you know, it it kind of makes you look at things a little differently.

And that's not to say that you know we um should not be accountable for what was in place, what will be in place, and what we will be doing moving forward.

I just think that um people want to spend, but then when it's time to you know do the work is is it's not it's not an easy thing.

And again, at the systems level for procurement and managing multiple departments, um, and understanding it's kind of like a trickle-down effect.

It can be a lot, so I want to acknowledge that and I want to say thank you for responding, right?

It was an audit, and you are responding um with the tools that you haven't been provided.

So I think my only my question was you mentioned you have three employees, and then how many number of cards did you say you had?

Right now we have seventy-three.

Okay, that's very minimal.

Okay.

And so, in thought of uh relaunch or full program, I know you still have metrics and things that you have to reach and and things that are submitted for close-in, and you need the program to kind of be uh look bring it a little bit more full circle.

What is the goal um of bringing back a full program?

What does that number look like?

I don't have a number.

Um we are going to evaluate it as we go.

I think as the CAO said, this is a process, we're moving through the process, we've hit some gates.

We've done it, my team has done an extremely huge amount of work to get us to this point.

Uh we've tightened up many, many, many of these controls.

Uh, and now we're gonna work with city personnel to make sure that they meet and we're supporting them to meet these goals.

If we meet these goals, then we'll evaluate where we need to go department by department, what's really required, what the business purpose is, and make some determinations if we grow this program beyond that.

Oh, thank you.

And then the other piece um you mentioned about contracts.

Do you see um, based off of what you found um as a result of this audit?

Do you see um a little bit more efficiency coming through contracts and cooperative procurements of like things that we can do and buy in bulk as opposed to having to issue out so many P Cards?

Yes, we're and we're working um we we have a compliance team that also does strategic sourcing.

So trying to try to aggregate the uh requirements and volume from the city so that we have one, two, three specific sources that we should be buying from.

Not necessarily a cooperative, cooperative would be great, but if we can do a bid or we can do an RFP to drive those costs down, we'll do it as well.

So both on the cooperative side and on the competitive side, uh, we are trying to establish a uh a bank of contracts that the city and and DPS would manage for city use.

Um we're working, we just uh I think we're going out to bid kind of working with the schools on uh some of the uh landscaping, tree trimming um you know uh type of work.

We're starting to try to work with other organizations uh around the area to uh to make this happen.

Yeah.

Yeah, and have you found, you know, I guess my last question is have you found um through that process that the ability to not have to maybe implement so many more cards because that's a challenge with three people.

Um what are your uh goals?

I guess for purchases that we know do need to be made in certain um departments.

How do you foresee that?

Um do you think having lesser cards, having lesser cards are gonna be more problematic, or do you think because it's easy, right?

To just give out a bunch of cards, let them let the other people do the work for you and your department.

Do you find having and having to manage lesser cards makes it more um efficient for you, or you could see with the proper controls, proper training and all those things, more cards not bogging y'all down to have to do that work so that you can focus more on competitive bids and all the things that need to happen to actually run the city?

It's a balance, right?

That's what it comes down to.

It's being a balance.

If we're if we get to a point where we've met these gates and we're gonna move forward, we re we really need to evaluate um issuing additional cards to any department for a specific business purpose.

We really uh we we just need to have some good oversight and insight into what the purpose is.

And uh, and then you know, during the process, make sure we're tracking and we have that oversight over what was purchased, how it was reconciled, and did they meet all the requirements that are in the policy that we've overhauled?

I think um I you know it's it's they have that the staff, city staff has the ability to go out and purchase things uh with a single quote process with a rec to POs, right?

Uh they have a PCAR process, we have cooperatives, we have a a lot of resources.

We're a customer service oriented organization, so uh we have agency contacts in our department for all the agencies if they have questions about trying to find the right widget or service uh we're here to we're here to support them okay and last question madam chair follow up um and do you find um what question I was gonna ask you about oh have you seen actual change behavior since the program has been paused and the cards that are out there have you seen changed behavior because ultimately it's a behavior issue right so like have you seen actual change behavior since you've only now that you're only working with a small subset of cards I think as the audit pointed out it's a it's a blend of many things behavior policies controls oversight there's a blend of things going on.

There is a shift and I've talked with a lot of my peers there's a shift in how we're gonna operate now and and I see them reacting well to it and really supporting DPS me uh to make sure that this is a successful program.

So I can see that shift happening it's just it's going to continue to shift in that direction so we're more effective and efficient uh in the future that's thank you thank you so much you're welcome again thank you for the presentation just a few questions and I'll get to you Miss Gibson as well um I want to speak to the items that uh submitted for law so let me be clear I'm not I appreciate the work that has been done and I appreciate the level of um closure that has been received and I'm glad that the closure the actual closure is with also with the support uh from the city auditor um I want to go back to the ones that and I want to invite the auditor to come forward as well if you feel like you would like to respond especially to those things that have been submitted but have not been closed as the reason why they aren't closed what are we expecting to get to closure and whether or not there's a timeline that we uh attempting to achieve to get to closure.

I'll let uh the city auditor talk to that point because that's kind of out of my hands.

Okay.

Yeah the um the first recommendation I think they submitted it today um if I'm not mistaken from Ms.

Castro that one is again when we wrote that recommendation it was to relaunch the you need to have a P Card program as we didn't want this to turn into no P Card program and that recommendation was about relaunching the program with the foundational controls of Mr.

Almar has described that recommendation is it's I spoke to her today that one will not close until we have a discretionary spending policy um that is the key to any PCAR program, AP payments there there needs to be a policy that really outlines what's allowable what's not allowable what's allowable with approval what those levels are and I know that the city has been working on that one we've been talking about it I think for quite some time um that one I'm not sure if if Ms Cash or our lead auditor on this has received that policy yet that's number two but I can tell you now that I I would not approve one the first recommendation without number two being in place once number two is in place I I am more inclined to say okay we're in a soft relaunch and we can close the first recommendation the last major piece of substantial compliance of one is that discretionary spending policy.

And the third, I'm trying to remember at the top of my head.

The third one.

I know that the conflict of interest one is pending, like you said, we haven't received anything there yet.

And I believe the third one has to do with um is that the the the thresholds, yeah.

Uh as we noted in the audit, the city has a single quote threshold uh where you can essentially purchase uh any payment without multiple quotes, uh up to 50,000.

Um that is substantially higher than all the benchmarking we've done, it was higher than what we had in South Florida.

Uh it is a very high threshold, and so that doesn't mean it's wrong.

That means that you have to have a risk tolerance and controls in place uh to support that threshold.

Whatever your threshold is, you need to ensure the higher it is, the stronger your controls need to be.

The lower it is, then you know you the you can have controls that aren't as strong at 50,000.

You you would need substantially strong controls.

And I think they're working on a process now that doesn't slow purchasing down, but does have the proper controls in place, and we have not uh we've had some discussion on that item, but we haven't closed it yet.

I don't think we've we've reached the conclusion as to what's gonna happen yet for that particular recommendation.

So the rest of them the recommendations have been uh closed.

We've reviewed the information.

Uh what our review and closure means is that we have seen controls and designed effectively.

Uh we do limited testing.

Um in addition, now follow-up and monitoring has to be done by the Department of Procurement.

Uh, we will do follow-up audits of this program.

We have one that we're waiting for kind of the stress test period to occur before we come back and say, okay, now that you've closed all of them, the program's in line.

We're gonna do follow-up.

We might even go with annual follow-up on this particular uh area.

Uh we're still in you know deciding that, but once they stress test the program, we'll we'll go back and say, Okay, we've you've designed controls in place.

Now, are you monitoring them effectively or things do things appear to be working?

Um, and I will add that the training was excellent.

I've I've told that to Mr.

Albers, it was it was it was interactive, it was clear, it had examples.

I think it's a great start uh to so that there's as he mentioned, there were a lot of different areas.

It wasn't just one issue that we identified in the audit, it was various different areas from policy to training to behavior, all of it was inclusive in the audit.

Um, I think the training element has is definitely gotten there.

Um, and I will note that as I mentioned, I think Tim as well that you know this is a great example of how you launch a government program with metrics, how you expand controls in place.

Um, it is, I think, a great example moving forward of how to properly launch a program and how you expand it with controls and metrics in place.

So hopefully that answered uh your questions about the recommendations.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Um is there a timeline that you're working towards with closures?

And then I guess the question is are we we're gonna wait for all of the closures to take place in order to have that stress period to go back and test whether or not what it's been put in place is actually achieving the results that we're looking for?

And and so we're we're as we move forward and set the program up to move forward, especially during this pilot, this 90-day pilot, to make sure we're meeting that.

We've put all of the oversight in place so that when they do their stress test, we've already done our stress test to make sure that things are aligning properly.

So when they come in it, they can see what we've done, and they can see that behavior has changed, processes are in place, and you know, cardholders are meeting timelines, etc.

etc.

etc.

Okay.

All right.

Uh Ms.

Gibson, you have a question?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, I um wanted to ask a question to Mr.

Donald, but um uh absent his participation.

I would just love to get your thoughts.

I I I believe very strongly in transparency, and I'm I'm excited about this program, and I wonder um is there any reason why all P-card transactions would not be able to be included in a payment register that was published, uh I'd have to talk to my leadership about that to kind of see where the where we stand on that.

I think uh the PCARD program and the documentation that we have is in several systems, and we'd have to see what it would look like to uh to try to make that available if that was the case.

Thank you.

My other question was um on uh the staffing, the the report noted that um there was only one person who was reviewing the 40,000 transactions.

Yes, um do you know what was there a vacancy or what was the reason why this uh process was under staffed?

When the program was established back in 2018, I think, uh there was one to two people.

I wasn't here at the time, I believe it might there might have been two resources, one left, and I don't know that that vacancy uh I don't think the vacancy stayed.

I think the vacancy uh got um taken off the books.

Uh so uh so we had one person in there.

I was here in earlier 22 through current.

Um so when I came in, we had one that one person doing it, and we were you know we were focusing on a lot of procurement-related activities outside of PCAR-related activities.

So um, you know, we're it was one person, maybe two initially, uh, when we uh when the program was kicked off back in 2018.

Thank you.

And could you talk a little bit more about the various softwares that are being used to um to review the um uh activities?

There's a mention of like AI and well, so there's a uh there's a company that we've hired uh uh card integrity, they do data analytics for commercial card programs, for uh local agency programs, for university programs.

Uh they do them across the nation.

Uh and so the analytics they look into the system works, which is the Bank of America system where the reconciliation process and the payment process occurs.

Um and they take that information and they align it.

They, if you will, they can say slice and dice it and provide us reports on um, you know, areas either areas of concern or just status or uh um by category by vendor by uh you name it.

They they provide um a plethora of reports around that.

And how much does the program cost?

14 a month.

1400 a month.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

All right, thank you very much for your presentation.

Thank you for the work that you've done.

This is a very um having a P Card system, I'm sure is extremely important for us to do our routine businesses and make things happen in the city.

Um I look forward to uh following the results of your stress tests, finalizing those things that not have not been closed, and uh the evaluation that will be done follow-up to make sure that the systems that have been put in place are working and achieving the uh checks and balances that is necessary.

I mean, whether you have one staff person or three staff person or five staffers, the internal controls.

Uh I essential that we uh making sure that not any one person have the authority to uh move forward without having those internal checks and balances and closures.

So that's um extremely important.

And I would hope that also as you move forward, that as you find that perhaps some of the things that we thought was good policy and is working well for us, uh extremely concerned about the uh the level of $50,000 uh purchases, those kinds of things.

Um, but we would also like to know that previous action that have been taken that may have worked for us well even if the checks and balances weren't where we want them to be that we don't drill down too tight that we cannot effectively move forward with being able to run the city effectively and efficiently but we will also be open to any additional learning lessons that are learned and reassessments that need to be done through the process.

So we'll continue to work together as a team to be able to effectively do the management that we'd like to see happen down in the city of Richmond and thank you for your services and your full team.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you Mr.

Order as well appreciate the work that you're doing to help us do our work more effectively and efficiently as well.

Madam Clerk is there anything else on the agenda?

No ma'am other than a staff report that was provided to you.

Staff report any follow-up questions or comments that we need to entertain.

Thank you madam chair so you know since counselor Gibson did indicate she maybe wanted to ask more questions about that commercial tax abatement evaluation I will be working with the administration if needed to help facilitate that.

Otherwise I'll just note that we currently have two presentations scheduled for next month's meeting one from the Department of Economic Development all about their plans their upcoming project pipeline and their performance metrics and then as a reminder the administration did request to present next month about um delinquent real estate taxes and the tax sale program relaunch.

So that one is tentatively on the agenda for next month as well.

And one other thing I would like to do is to go back and review the reports the financial reports and make sure that we are in agreement with the information that's being reported so that beginning this new fiscal year that we have agreed to what is in those reports and how those reports are going to be presented and reviewed and when we would like to receive them wouldn't like to be able to have that as a discussion at least in our pre-if not before but absolutely in our pre-discussion meeting before the next finance committee meeting any additional information or questions Ms.

Gibson in regards to your paper that we continued that we want to make sure that is a part of the discussion at the next finance committee meeting we want to make sure that any of those questions in advance would be good to have as well so that we can be prepared to have that information presented and ready for presentation prior to you know hearing it first as a part of the committee meeting to the extent that is possible not only for Ms.

Gibson's paper but the administration as well okay.

Madam Clerk with that if there's no other business this meeting is adjourned thank you very much for your support