Posts: 290
Threads: 4
Joined: Jul 2014
Leilanidude
On 8/25 I responded:
Posted - 08/25/2016 : 07:17:25 Show Profile Edit Reply Reply with Quote Delete Reply
".... So do you think he was exempted from keeping receipts and the reporting requirements as well..."
No, I don't. And it seems that is the basis for the indictment. It wasn't that he made any allowed purchase, personal or otherwise. We now know* that was legal and within the rules. Instead it's the reporting , or misreporting, that is the issue.
* with the exception of some on this forum
i believe he was (properly) exempted from rules that otherwise applied to PCard users. However I don't believe he was exempted from the mechanical/technical issues, e.g reporting.
That does bother me. But I don't believe those issues warrant impeachment or indictment.
Several Great questions you asked Leilanidude. This whole P-Card scandal and state cover-up should have been predictable rather than surprising.
http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesM...tions.aspx
Our Mayor has been very blessed and well protected throughout his life here on the Big Island, he and his friends may be exempt from most or all American laws. One of our Mayor's good friends aka "Rat" who was at the shooter's bar fight incident in 2008, was later involved in this tragic DUI accident that killed two youths on the Island. Just Yesterday I had the privilege to see our Mayor's friend "RAT" driving yet another truck around the Kawaihai area, He looked free, healthy, and happy. jmo
http://westhawaiitoday.com/sections/news...wreck.html
P.S. This video regarding our 2016 county budget shows some here that $$millions$$ are more important qualities than ethics, morals, values, or community trust. Many of these prominent people in this video should also be present in court for our Mayor's P-Card scandal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iya2Cu_nqOY#t=34.778938
Posts: 1,556
Threads: 50
Joined: Oct 2012
That is what I don't understand here... just because you are Mayor of hawai'i county.. you are put into God mode with the position. Maybe I'm old fashion... but we used to tar and feather Yahoo's for less than this.
..Bad boys,Bad boys what we gonna do...let ya out on bail for a buck or two...
Posts: 216
Threads: 5
Joined: Apr 2014
quote:
Originally posted by Chunkster
A coverup and/or conspiracy come to mind, but I have nothing to base that on other than sheer speculation. Is simple failure to report malfeasance a crime in Hawaii? This case just gets "curioser and curioser" as Alice would say.
My speculation is that it was suppose to work. The Mayor was suppose to avoid detection and get away with it but someone blew the whistle.
I can't help but think that the only way this could have gone down is with the assistance of others in the executive branch of government. Somebody had to, for example, unblock the Mayor's pCard. All vendors have a merchant number code so that they can be tracked. The pCard has a blocked merchant code (MMC) which are the things that the pCard will not process. The bicycle shop has a vendor code which is on the list of blocked merchant codes on that back of the Mayor's pCard. The bicycle should have been declined at the point of purchase. How did Mayor Billy over come this? Who gave him carte blanche to make personal purchases like a surfboard or alcohol when both are suppose to be blocked? How did Mayor Billy get an airline ticket for that young man to travel to Honolulu when airlines are on the blocked (MCC) pCard list? I surmise that the managing director, finance directer, third party pCard administrator and the First Hawaiian bank let him do it without reporting it or dealing with it. To me that means people were getting paid not to do their job.
The Mayor says he will beat the charges and refuses to step down. At the start of this whole mess, Billy said “I'm sorry I did it.” than he said ”I'm innocent”. Now, he's talking about technicalities. It's just a slap in the face. He presided over a very dishonest administration. Two of them. And yet Mayor Billy gave everyone raises this year and the County Council approved them when they approved the budget. Hum.
Mismanagement? Malfeasance in office? These are the issues that are within the Hawaii County Charter which serves as our constitution. In the Charter there is a whole chapter, Chapter two, that deals with Impeachment and what you do when it is time to get rid of an elected officer.
The County Council had the power and the duty to start impeachment proceedings. It should have been easy. Impeach Billy and remove him from the office so he has to defend himself from outside of government and without a salary. The Mayor couldn’t possibly being doing his job now with all of these distractions. The office has been compromised and some of us no longer have trust and confidence in our Mayor.(Some of us never did...)
Now Billy will walk out of the office. No ,he will strut and swagger out of the office, knowing that the legislators decided to let him off the hook.
This issue is a symptom of a problem that has been going on for a long time in government in Hawai'i if not the entire nation.
Posts: 4,155
Threads: 94
Joined: Mar 2014
If the hostess bars were listed as restaurants, they would not have been blocked. Having been in the corporate world for many years, I can tell you that merchant codes can be wrong in either direction. I doubt anyone "unblocked" the card - or unblocked those particular merchants.
Posts: 1,556
Threads: 50
Joined: Oct 2012
quote:
This issue is a symptom of a problem that has been going on for a long time in government in Hawai'i if not the entire nation
So true.
..Bad boys,Bad boys what we gonna do...let ya out on bail for a buck or two...
Posts: 216
Threads: 5
Joined: Apr 2014
Originally posted by leilanidude
If the hostess bars were listed as restaurants, they would not have been blocked. Having been in the corporate world for many years, I can tell you that merchant codes can be wrong in either direction. I doubt anyone "unblocked" the card - or unblocked those particular merchants.
I beg to differ with you Sir. It is a government not a corporate pCard. Government pCards are different with different agreements then what you were dealing with in your many years of corporate employment. If you read the pCard manual you can see for yourself the prohibitions and food is one of them. You might be surprised what else is on that list.
For food receipts... if you can prove to the finance director that it was government business then you get the money back. Everything is suppose to be reconciled by the end of the month. Have you ever heard of per diem?
Posts: 1,163
Threads: 32
Joined: Aug 2009
RJ,
Not to stir the pot any more than necessary, I believe Leilani's point was that even when the card issuer and the government officials/corporate officials agree which types of establishments should be blocked by the card issuer, sometimes the merchant code doesn't match to the card issuer's "blocked" database, so charges can slip through the card issuer's filter.
So even if the County prohibits purchasing food on the card and the card issuer blocks what would normally be considered food vendors, if the hostess bar's merchant code was something more obscure, the card issuer's software would allow the charge at the cash register even though it wasn't supposed to.
Since everyone here loves speculation so much, it's not out of the question to suppose that a hostess bar would try to protect its customers from embarrassment by obfuscating its true identity/reason d'etre on the credit card statement - or use an anonymous billing aggregator just like porn sites online do (...uh, um, like I'm told they do <looking around to see if anyone is buying it...>). In that case, no one (except the customer) would know what the charge really was unless they followed up with the card issuer for more detail.
Posts: 216
Threads: 5
Joined: Apr 2014
quote:
Originally posted by KeaauRich
RJ,
Not to stir the pot any more than necessary, I believe Leilani's point was that even when the card issuer and the government officials/corporate officials agree which types of establishments should be blocked by the card issuer, sometimes the merchant code doesn't match to the card issuer's "blocked" database, so charges can slip through the card issuer's filter.
So even if the County prohibits purchasing food on the card and the card issuer blocks what would normally be considered food vendors, if the hostess bar's merchant code was something more obscure, the card issuer's software would allow the charge at the cash register even though it wasn't supposed to.
Since everyone here loves speculation so much, it's not out of the question to suppose that a hostess bar would try to protect its customers from embarrassment by obfuscating its true identity/reason d'etre on the credit card statement - or use an anonymous billing aggregator just like porn sites online do (...uh, um, like I'm told they do <looking around to see if anyone is buying it...>). In that case, no one (except the customer) would know what the charge really was unless they followed up with the card issuer for more detail.
Are you speculating that every time the Mayor made a personal purchase on the pCard it was because the vendor had the ability to alter the blocked (MCC) merchant code number?
And are you surmising that this is what happened in every case that involved an inappropriate personal purchase on the pCard?
I don't think this is possible the way the system is set up. Someone must corrupt it.
The pCard system works but there are people inside the system who try to work it and get over. Why are we paying the finance director, the managing director, the third party pCard administrator, and the supposed auditor if they can't detect a bicycle or a surfboard until now (or until Nancy Cook Lauer broke the story.)
Posts: 1,163
Threads: 32
Joined: Aug 2009
RJ Wrote: "Are you speculating that every time the Mayor made a personal purchase on the pCard it was because the vendor had the ability to alter the blocked (MCC) merchant code number?"
No, I'm just saying that the pCard's point of sale processing software isn't sophisticated enough to stop all purchases forbidden under County regulations. The pCard doesn't have a list of specific authorized vendors or MCC codes; rather it has a list of authorized categories of vendors. A store's individual merchant code is associated with a generic category - but that category might not be specific enough to catch all potential fraud or inappropriate purchases. For example, every year I get an annual statement from my credit card company that summarizes my purchases by category. My Safeway grocery purchases show up under "grocery stores" for example. However, if I buy gas from the Safeway pumps, those purchases don't show up under "gas stations," they still show up under "grocery stores" because the software says "Safeway = grocery store." If the county told the pCard card processor not to allow grocery purchases (a reasonable restriction), the card would be denied when an official tried to buy gas for a travel-related rental car (a legitimate expense) at Safeway. Conversely, if the official popped into the quickie mart at an Exxon station, they could probably buy all the milk, bread and other groceries they wanted on their pCard, because the processor software would think they were buying gas. So if the Mayor bought the inappropriate items from a store whose merchant category was broad enough to be legitimate in some circumstances but not in others, the software would probably allow it. (it would be OK to by an emergency supply of printer ink from WalMart. Other items, not so much... but the software isn't smart enough t know what you bought, just where you bought it). In other words, the third party pCard administrator/card processor is just the first level filter
I have a close friend who is a pCard-carrying county official, and the most by-the-books guy you ever wanted to meet. He says that typical travel-related expenses (air fares, hotels, meals) can be charged on the pCard as long as they are legitimate business expenses, within appropriate limits, and properly documented with receipts. So if the card processor thinks the hostess bar is a restaurant (a category that includes everything from Denny's to Delmonico's) , it probably would approve the charge as a routine matter. it would then be up to the County oversight process to verify that the restaurant expense was legitimate.
The integrity of the pCard system is based on a system of check and balances - the integrity of the user, the County oversight process, and the third party card processor's charge authorization process. In the vast majority of the cases, audits show that users play by the rules. Clearly, in Billy's case there was a flaw in the system -- the Mayor's expenditures were reviewed by a subordinate employee who reports to the Mayor. We don't yet know which (if any) people questioned the Mayor's pCard purchases. And we don't know how the Mayor justified the purchases to the questioners -- hopefully that will come out on the court proceedings. It's all well and good to say that the underling should have risked his/her career and pension to publicly blow the whistle on the Mayor, but that's a tough call when it's your future on the line and the guy you're second-guessing is at the top of the food chain. We do know that someone leaked the pCard info to the press, so the check and balances worked to a degree -- just not as quickly or efficiently as we might have hoped. Perhaps a better system would have the Mayor's expenses (and those of the Council Chair too) be reviewed by another elected official who doesn't report to the mayor or Council (the prosecutor maybe?)
To reiterate, I'm not defending the inappropriate charges - just offering my perspective on how this could have happened without a lot of conscious subterfuge up and down the line.
|
