Purchasing-card (P-Card) controversies have surfaced across Connecticut government for years. The names and amounts change; the pattern does not. Receipts go missing. Personal or unauthorized purchases slip through. Supervisors approve charges that should have raised questions. Auditors arrive months or years later to explain what should have been caught before the bill was paid. Taxpayers are promised stronger procedures. Until the next case.
A Pattern, Not an Anomaly
The most prominent recent example involves former New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart. A city-commissioned investigation alleged that Stewart charged more than $200,000 to a city-issued credit card over nearly adecade, including purchases investigators described as personal or political: clothing, groceries, makeup, jewelry, club dues, family birthday expenses and campaign-related travel. Investigators also criticized New Britain’s finance department for failing to stop or adequately review the spending. The city ordered Stewart to repay approximately $241,000, a figure that includes disputed tuition reimbursements, a vacation payout and investigative costs in addition to the credit-card charges themselves. The matter was referred to state and federal authorities, and the U.S. Department of Justice has subpoenaed city financial records.
The allegations remain unproved. But the records already point to a systemic failure. A government credit card cannot be repeatedly misused without weak review, inattentive supervisors or an approval process that has become a formality.
New Britain is not an isolated case. New Haven recently terminated its food-system policy director after city officials said she admitted making at least $5,000 in unauthorized personal purchases with a city procurement card; her supervisor received an unpaid suspension, and police opened an investigation. In Fairfield, investigators found town credit cards had been used for personal purchases including meals, gift cards, medication, and running shoes — no evidence of intent to defraud, but clear evidence of weak controls and poor enforcement.
The same failures appear at the state level. An independent audit of Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) found P-Card violations involving senior administrators, including Chancellor Terrence Cheng, who reportedly charged approximately $19,000 in meals over three years, with purchases that exceeded meal limits and included alcohol and tips auditors considered excessive. A separate state audit of Southern Connecticut State University examined more than $77,000 in transactions and found missing receipts, purchases made by individuals other than the named cardholder and charges divided to avoid spending limits. At the Office of Health Strategy, auditors found nearly $4,500 in transactions lacking sufficient documentation to establish a legitimate state purpose.
Not every missing receipt is theft, and not every policy violation is a crime. Some cases involve carelessness rather than fraud. That does not excuse the system. When the same failures recur across agencies and municipalities, the problem is structural.
The Records Already Exist
Taxpayers should not have to wait for a whistleblower, an audit or a press investigation to learn how public credit cards are being used. Nor should residents and reporters have to file separate Freedom of Information requests with state agencies and 169 municipalities, then wait for records to arrive in inconsistent and sometimes unusable formats.
Government already has the information. Connecticut’s P-Card rules requires state cardholders to document the vendor, date, description, and amount of each purchase, with signatures from both the cardholder and a supervisor. Records for shared department cards are supposed to identify who actually used the card. State agencies maintain electronic systems capable of producing transaction reports, monitoring card activity, and reviewing policy compliance, and recent changes require receipts and supporting documentation to be digitized in Core-CT or another state financial system.
Connecticut does not need to create the records necessary for transparency. It needs to make them public.
The state already does this for other financial information. OpenConnecticut allows users to search state operating expenses through an online checkbook and review employee compensation through its payroll database. P-Card transactions should be subject to the same principle.
A Concrete Reform
Yankee Institute recommends the General Assembly adopt an Expenditure Records and Information Notification Act to bring government P-Card activity into public view through a centralized disclosure system. State agencies and nonprofit organizations receiving taxpayer money would make relevant card expenditures available online, with appropriate protections for account numbers, legally exempt records and sensitive financial information. For municipalities, the Office of Policy and Management would develop a model P-Card transparency ordinance that towns could adopt, with the requirement that any decision not to adopt it be reported publicly.
The details of coverage, disclosure requirements and compliance enforcement deserve further deliberation. The principle is straightforward: when someone uses a credit card backed by taxpayers, taxpayers should be able to see the purchase, identify who was authorized to use the card and know who was responsible for reviewing the charge. A cardholder may make the purchase, but supervisors and financial officials are supposed to stop improper charges from becoming taxpayer expenses. When those safeguards fail, accountability should not end with the employee whose name appears on the statement.
Connecticut already has P-Card rules, logs, supervisors, electronic records and penalties for misuse. What it lacks is public oversight before the next scandal. Audits tell taxpayers what went wrong. Transparency can help prevent it from happening again.
