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City auditor finds weaknesses in P-Card controls; staff says fixes underway
Summary
A City Auditor performance audit found gaps in Fort Lauderdale's procurement card program—missing attractive-item records, delayed card cancellations, incomplete receipts and questionable purchases—while city management said it already has begun corrective steps including new inventory tools and exploring AI-based transaction monitoring.
The Fort Lauderdale City Auditor presented a performance audit of the city's procurement card (P-Card) program on Tuesday, detailing four repeat findings and recommending stronger internal controls and automated monitoring.
"The internal controls relating to the P-Card program were not adequately improved and maintained since the prior audit," City Auditor Patrick Riley told commissioners. The audit covered a 15-month period and lifecycle testing into 2025; it found incomplete inventories and disposal documentation for "attractive items" (high-risk property under local policy), inconsistent administration of P-Card issuance and cancellation, missing or non-itemized receipts (7% of tested receipts), and prohibited or questionable purchases, including split transactions and unsupported construction invoices.
Riley said the issues create a persistent vulnerability to fraud and operational waste: extrapolating the sample results suggests roughly 2,000 noncompliant transactions annually. The audit team also identified a third-party fraudulent charge during the audit period; staff secured a $20,000 reversal from the issuing bank once the issue was investigated.
City management said it generally concurred with the findings and has already taken steps to strengthen controls. Finance Director Linda Short and Assistant City Manager Yvette Matthews told commissioners that the city is implementing inventory-tracking tools, updating work-order systems, funding P-Card audit resources, and investigating real-time monitoring and AI-based exception detection to reduce lag between transactions and oversight.
Commissioners pressed for follow-up audits and asked staff to provide status updates; one commissioner requested a narrower follow-up that covers January 2025 through the present to ensure recent problems were addressed. City staff said they will pursue real-time monitoring tools and additional training and will work with the auditor's office on remediation timelines.
The audit report and the commission's questions underscore both the volume of P-Card activity in the city's decentralized procurement model and the need for stronger, more automated controls.
