No Comments! Be The First!
The lingering p-card J’s Mega Mart Mystery
Posted By katie allison granju
The KnoxBlab satirist ponders the mystery of p-card spending at J’s Mega Mart:
On page 35 of the audit, in Exhibit 3, “Knox County Mayor’s Office Questionable Transactions Remaining — Michael Ragsdale Purchasing Card,” Item #46 is listed as 9/30/05/ J’s Mega Mart/ $19.65.
“But the really, really puzzling one is J’s,” said Walls. “I’m confident that whatever it was, it was a legitimate business is expense. It’s just driving me crazy trying to think what it might be. Knives — they’ve got good knives cheap at J’s. Maybe a visiting dignitary wanted a knife as a memento? Maybe something to gnosh? ‘Cos the mayor did a lot of P-card dining.”
The audit also address local meals.
Ragsdale’s office spent $34,000 on local meals from October 2002 to May 2007.
Walls said his staff was unable to find a reference to local meals in the purchasing card entries under the general ledger account “Purchases at J’s Mega Mart.” Walls said that account is for “eggs, milk, toilet plungers, Jones soda, cook ware, utensils, and dinnerware, expenses for human food supplies, and animal food and supplies and haberdashery incidentals.”
“It is not clear that this is related to meals acquired at local restaurants,” Walls wrote.
The mayor’s office issued a statement insisting that the J’s Mega Mart $19.65 charge was “cleared.”
“It was cleared, it is cleared and it’s going to stay cleared,” reads the statement in part. “It’s as clear a sky-blue spring day, and that’s pretty darn clear. Question any of the other charges all you want — but the $19.65 at J’s, it’s cleared I tell you!”
May 12th, 2008
