DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — We are talking to the senator who initiated a plan to scrutinize how the city of Daytona Beach spends your tax dollars. The call for the audit follows a Channel 9 investigation that exposed questionable credit card spending, lax oversight, and generous car allowances.
Senator Tom Wright, who represents Volusia County, said he’s losing confidence in how the city of Daytona Beach handles its finances.
“When you have 250 purchase cards for example and you’re not sure who all has them and you look at what’s been paid this year. Close to 7 million dollars has been spent on those cards. That’s concerning when you see where the money is being spent,” said Wright.
That prompted him to write a letter requesting that a state committee approve an audit of the city. Wright doesn’t believe the city is taking its own auditor seriously.
“I would think they would say boy we didn’t know that. We can do better. What can we do to make it better? But instead they just said well we are going to choose a 10 person committee and start looking at things every 6 months. That’s evasive,” said Wright.
Yesterday, we asked every commissioner for a response to this situation. Stacy Cantu, Monica Paris, Ken Strickland, and the mayor all got back to us. Paris and Cantu support an outside audit.
Strickland and the mayor don’t think it’s necessary.
“I’ve said it from the dais. I would like to see the state mind their own business, we will take care of it. We are working on it as I speak right now,” said Strickland.
“Nothing has risen to the level that leads me to believe that we are corrupt or in danger of great short comings,” said Henry.
Channel 9 will be in Tallahassee on Monday for the state legislative auditing committee meeting. We will have live updates from there on Eyewitness News.
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