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City purchasing staff outlines encumbrance rules and credit-card visibility; council presses for contract controls
Summary
Purchasing staff explained encumbrance and requisition workflows in the city’s Finance Enterprise system, described single blanket POs for credit-card cycles and identified visibility gaps that contributed to large credit-card fees and a contract that reached council before a signed agreement was ready.
Brenda, purchasing agent for the city, explained the encumbrance process and approval workflow used to reserve funds before orders are issued. "An encumbrance is a commitment of funds set aside for future expenses ensuring that you have the proper budget allocation," Brenda said, summarizing the pre-encumbrance (purchase request) and full-encumbrance (purchase order) steps in the Finance Enterprise system.
Brenda described how departments enter purchase requests that pre-encumber funds and then route the requests to supervisors and purchasing for verification. "When that approval process is in place ... once the department head approves it, then it passes on to the final approver, which would be me," she said, and only after final approval are funds fully encumbered.
Staff and council discussed how the city handles credit-card charges. Brenda…
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