After a year of reviewing and changing policies for how city employees buy goods and services with government-issued purchasing cards, Mayor Danny Avula’s administration says it has put enough safeguards in place for a “soft relaunch" of the program.

Avula suspended the program in April of 2025 after an internal audit and reporting by the Richmond Times-Dispatch found major problems with how the purchasing cards were being used, many dealing with sloppy protocols and a general lack of oversight. The audit, officially released last June, said those weaknesses led to at least $5 million in “questionable expenses.”

The city has now implemented many of the auditor’s recommendations on how to tighten the rules for the purchasing cards. Informally known as P-cards, the system was meant to streamline small purchases that need to be made quickly.

For now, the city isn’t dramatically expanding the number of purchasing cards in circulation. But Procurement Director Rene Almarez said the city is doing a 90-day “soft relaunch” to test how the new rules are working.

“We've developed tracking tools, monitoring, and enforcement to make sure that in the future — in the near term, and in the long term, that we have great oversight and insight into what cardholders are purchasing,” Almarez said at a media briefing Tuesday morning. “And it provides guidance to the cardholders as well to know what their limitations are on the card.”

Officials said there are currently 73 purchasing cards in circulation, a significant reduction from the 320 issued before Avula curtailed the program in an attempt to cut down on excessive spending. The city had to issue a few new cards during January’s winter weather, according to officials, so that Social Services employees could quickly buy food and hotel rooms for people who needed help in an emergency.

“The P-card reset, the subsequent work is a great example of the kind of transformation that we’re working to achieve across City Hall,” said Avula, who stressed that “financial controls and spending” have been a major focus since he took office in early 2025.

City leaders said they can’t guarantee there will be no future problems with improper purchases. But they expressed confidence that the overhauled system — which includes stricter rules for reconciling expenses, limits on transaction amounts and escalating disciplinary measures for violations — will help prevent future mistakes or intentional abuse.

“It is impossible to believe that there won’t be an error. That just doesn’t happen,” said Chief Administrative Officer Odie Donald II. “The issue is when there is an error, when there is a challenge, do we have the framework in place to be able to catch it, identify it and resolve it. And that piece is what we are just as focused on.”

The city has also hired an outside company called Card Integrity to help monitor spending patterns with the cards and help spot anomalies like split purchases, where an employee may be dividing a large purchase into multiple smaller purchases to avoid triggering spending limits.

According to the city, Richmond will pay the company a subscription rate of either $1,400 a month or $16,800 annually.

Contact Reporter Graham Moomaw at gmoomaw@richmonder.org