County staff recommend replacing departmental debit cards with individual p‑cards; court to formalize card and purchasing policy

County staff asked the Wichita County Commissioners Court to consider formalizing and expanding the county’s purchasing-card policy and to phase out most departmental debit cards. The staff presentation described current card counts, recommended controls and suggested a single emergency debit account for rare exceptions.

The issue matters because staff said moving to individual, name‑linked p‑cards and a single reconciled account improves transparency and speeds reconciliation of bank statements. "My recommendation to the court would be that if we consider to expand the p cards ... we could do away with the debit cards and that we could just have the key cards and do just a 1 account for those," a staff member identified as Matt said when presenting the proposal.

Staff reported the county currently maintains roughly 13 departmental debit cards and a p‑card account that has 29 cards associated with it; the presenter said the departmental cards have a combined balance of about $121,000 and the p‑card account carries about $25,000. The recommendation was to issue named p‑cards to individuals, set daily and per‑transaction tiers, require electronic receipt uploads to a shared file, and keep one emergency debit card with a reduced balance (staff suggested lowering the emergency balance from $25,000 to $10,000–$15,000).

Several commissioners raised limits and safeguards. One commissioner said he did not want expanded purchasing authority on his p‑card beyond travel, while others supported issuing named cards for foremen or authorized employees. The court discussed practical issues: some hotels require a card in the presenter's name to reserve rooms, and staff noted that a $2,000 daily limit would be the base tier but could be raised for exceptions, such as district attorney travel or group bookings.

The county auditor and purchasing staff outlined reconciliation workflow: bank statements and backups can be downloaded and tied to receipts, and the county is evaluating third‑party integrations that would automate reconciliation. Staff asked commissioners to review a draft p‑card policy and a proposed county purchasing policy modeled on larger Texas counties; they recommended delaying final adoption until after a pending state change to the procurement threshold is resolved. The presenter noted the current state procurement threshold has been $50,000 for many years and said pending legislation may raise it to $100,000, and the court discussed that in adopting a purchasing policy the commissioners can set thresholds that they prefer.

Commissioners did not adopt a new policy at the meeting; staff will draft a formal card policy and a revised purchasing policy for future court consideration.