08-26-2016, 09:43 AM
This whole incident could not have happened if it wasn't for the managing director who is the Mayor's pCard administrator. They get over $100,000 per year to do that job. Part of what that job entails is reconciling the Mayor's pCard every month. This means making sure to have all the receipts for that month to check against the bank statement to make sure there was no unauthorized purchases...“the pCard shall be used to charge only official government purchases.”-pCard manual.
Then the pCard administrator makes his monthly report and turns it over to the Finance Director's office. I think an audit is suppose to be done on the pCard account every six months. There is even a third party pCard administrator to make sure that everything flows correctly. That's why I say I know there are many people holding their breath hoping to not get sucked up into this scandal.
The First Hawaiian bank has to be involved in all this. It goes all the way up the line. Everybody hid a little piece. The Hostess bar should have been declined right at the point of payment. Why was it not? It serves food, alcohol and personal services. After the Mayor has had the good time with the unknown partiers (or he can explain who he was doing business with) he should have come back to Wally Lau with a receipt and if he used his pCard he should have paid it right then and there. That is what it says in the manual. You can make a mistake but you pay it back immediately. You let your pCard administrator know that you were at a hostess bar and got all excited and used the wrong card and here's the money. Then it is nobodies business.
BUT even if the Mayor didn't do that we are still not in felony territory and none of this has anything to do with the police. So if the Attorney General's office wants to make a complaint and file charges on Billy because he lied to them then that should be the story. The Mayor is just violating pCard regulations which means he should have been made to face impeachment by the council or recalled by the people.
When Billy bought people poki and sent a young man to Honolulu I am sure he got lots of Aloha and “mahalo Uncle Billy” but the money that Billy was using to make smiles on peoples faces was the electorate's money who have now found out. Yet again, we are not into anything felonious just violations of the pCard agreement, regulations and procedures.
There is a way for Mayor Billy to have helped, for example, the family who came to him asking for assistance to send their boy to Honolulu for a surfing competition. Unless the event was the next day, Mayor Billy should have filed a SPO-035 form,seven days before the event. This is the process of asking the Finance Director to approve what would be considered an unauthorised purchase. If the Finance Director denies the Mayor's request then it should have come out of his own pocket.
Then the pCard administrator makes his monthly report and turns it over to the Finance Director's office. I think an audit is suppose to be done on the pCard account every six months. There is even a third party pCard administrator to make sure that everything flows correctly. That's why I say I know there are many people holding their breath hoping to not get sucked up into this scandal.
The First Hawaiian bank has to be involved in all this. It goes all the way up the line. Everybody hid a little piece. The Hostess bar should have been declined right at the point of payment. Why was it not? It serves food, alcohol and personal services. After the Mayor has had the good time with the unknown partiers (or he can explain who he was doing business with) he should have come back to Wally Lau with a receipt and if he used his pCard he should have paid it right then and there. That is what it says in the manual. You can make a mistake but you pay it back immediately. You let your pCard administrator know that you were at a hostess bar and got all excited and used the wrong card and here's the money. Then it is nobodies business.
BUT even if the Mayor didn't do that we are still not in felony territory and none of this has anything to do with the police. So if the Attorney General's office wants to make a complaint and file charges on Billy because he lied to them then that should be the story. The Mayor is just violating pCard regulations which means he should have been made to face impeachment by the council or recalled by the people.
When Billy bought people poki and sent a young man to Honolulu I am sure he got lots of Aloha and “mahalo Uncle Billy” but the money that Billy was using to make smiles on peoples faces was the electorate's money who have now found out. Yet again, we are not into anything felonious just violations of the pCard agreement, regulations and procedures.
There is a way for Mayor Billy to have helped, for example, the family who came to him asking for assistance to send their boy to Honolulu for a surfing competition. Unless the event was the next day, Mayor Billy should have filed a SPO-035 form,seven days before the event. This is the process of asking the Finance Director to approve what would be considered an unauthorised purchase. If the Finance Director denies the Mayor's request then it should have come out of his own pocket.