Update 12/7/06:

City Manager Mary Suhm provided a memo to the City Council regarding the database.

Watch WFAA update by Brett Shipp.

One might possibly argue that there's way too much travel on the city's dime, or that we should be buying the zoo's frozen snake food through bids and purchase orders as opposed to petty cash.

However, that's policy. Not abuse.

On Monday, during several interviews (and again in my conversation with the City Manager), I was asked to compare the City's credit card purchases with the ones that made headlines at DISD. My reply was "at first glance they looked much better."

I hope the trend holds.

If it does (and there are several media outlets digging around), the City of Dallas will have shown that there actually is a "safer, better" procurement card model.

I'm going to throw some "curve balls" today and see if I can get a "strike." But don't bet the farm. Mark Deubner, the program's director, looks like a pretty good batter!

Update:

Then there's Robert Wilonsky of the Dallas Observer. Watching Robert blog is like watching your TiVO at 4X speed! He's incredibly quick, thorough and it leaves most of us in the dust!

So less than an hour into playing around in the database, Robert had already turned up several things that begged follow-ups. But he didn't stop there, he actually called these places as a true investigative journalist!

Go get 'em Robert!

Also, watch Brett Shipp with Channel 8 News (you should be watching him all the time anyway)!

Procurement cards. They're everywhere our public agencies want them to be.

There's actually a funny story behind this database.

When we originally filed our request under the Texas Public Information Act , we had no idea the City of Dallas issued procurement cards like its cousin: the Dallas Independent School District.

When the City wrote us "there are no records responsive to this request" in response to our request for "procurement card" data, we were somewhat relieved that the city wasn't risking the same traps as DISD.

It wasn't until later, thanks to a tip from a city council member, we discovered the City called them "credit cards" and not "procurement cards!"

Armed with the knowledge that city officials wanted to play semantic games, we filed another request. This time, we asked for data on all "personal financial instruments" and included a detailed description of what might fall into this category.

After months of delays, the city (knowing full-well what we were going to do with it) finally furnished us the data. Sometimes it amazes (and disappoints) us the lengths to which some of our public agencies will go to keep the public out of the public's business!

So here are a few statistics:

• Period Covered: October, 2005 through September, 2006
• Number of employees with cards: 260
• Number of transactions: 16,361
• Total spent: $3,626,477.02

Though the data is nowhere as extensive as the data maintained by DISD, we have organized it in such a way as to show things like the 8 employees who spent $13,259.93 at Bahama Beach Waterpark and the $3,222.01 spent by 9 employees at Petsmart .

Now we'll freely admit that things aren't always what they seem and there may be a great reason for spending $13,259.93 of taxpayer money at a waterpark, but from the information furnished, it is impossible to tell.

Were city "credit cards" used to circumvent State purchasing laws? We don't know.

Perhaps you can find something!

Here's how we suggest starting:

• First, if you haven't done so, register for an account
• Next, explore the City's credit card transactions
• Finally, cross reference employees with the city salary database to find out what they do and where they work

Be sure and let us know if you find anything interesting! Have fun exploring!