Seminole County cities differ on rules for taxpayer purchase cards

Winter Springs’ repayment for unauthorized hotel-card expenses pushed a quiet local finance tool into the spotlight, and the picture that emerged was a county with no single rulebook for taxpayer purchase cards.

A P-Card, or purchasing card, is a corporate credit card issued to city employees for routine purchases and business travel. In Seminole County, those cards are governed city by city, with different transaction limits, different approval chains and different lists of forbidden purchases. That variation matters because the same charge can look routine in one city and improper in another.

The scrutiny intensified after Winter Springs commissioners moved to formalize a travel spending policy following the repayment tied to a 2025 Florida League of Cities conference. The episode showed how quickly purchase-card use can become a public trust issue when the rules are unclear or loosely enforced.

Seminole County itself has treated the card as a standard procurement tool for decades. In September 1998, the Seminole County Board of County Commissioners implemented a commercial credit card program for small-dollar goods and services and for employee travel. A 2013 review by the Office of the Clerk of the Circuit Court said county code required departments to use the Purchasing Card as the preferred method for purchases under $1,000.

That same review also found trouble at the county level, including non-compliance with purchasing-card policy, costs that exceeded limits and the need for corrective action. The findings underscored a basic problem that still applies across local government: a card designed to speed up small purchases can create bigger headaches if oversight slips.

The City of Seminole has built more formality into its system. Its ordinance requires finance director approval before a purchase card can be issued, and no city official may begin using the card until he or she has reviewed, acknowledged understanding of and agreed to follow the city’s policies and procedures. That kind of written sign-off stands in contrast to cities that rely on broader or less rigid internal rules.

Seminole County Public Schools also keeps written procurement policies and procedures for employees involved in purchasing, another sign that public entities in the county expect spending rules to be explicit, documented and enforced. After Winter Springs, the larger question for Seminole County is whether the cities should keep operating under different standards for the same taxpayer card.