Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.

On January 16, 2025, I made the following Public Information Request of the Glendale City Clerk: “All available information held by the city relating to Councilmember Bart Turner and his travel and any requests for reimbursement as a result of the use of his ProCard for his travel from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2024. That includes, but is not limited to, correspondence, emails, charts, and memoranda between the Councilmember and any member of the City of Glendale staff.”

On March 12, 2025, I received the public records I had requested.

I had heard from various sources that Councilmember Bart Turner’s Procurement Card (also referred to as ProCard or pcard) had been terminated. This is highly unusual. That is why I made the Public Information Request. It was to verify that his ProCard had indeed been terminated and why.

All of the information used is a public record and can be obtained by making the same request to the City Clerk for information that I did.

If anyone from the media wishes to confirm this public information or do further reporting, I will make the public records I received available.

First, it is important for you, the reader, to know some background information. A ProCard is, in essence, the city’s credit card. Certain levels of department personnel and elected officials have a ProCard issued to them. Routinely it is used for educational courses, office supplies, event supplies and travel. With the exception of travel, the charges are usually small.

The city takes the use of a ProCard very seriously. It must be used exclusively for small purchases, education, travel or city business that will benefit an employee’s (including elected officials) productivity by learning new methods or procedures related to one’s job or by networking with others in the same field or by gaining instruction on new or amended federal or state laws that can impact the city. There are miscellaneous reasons, such as grant procurement, for use of the ProCard but they must be related to and in some way bring a benefit to the city. Under no circumstances may a ProCard be used for any personal reason or to purchase alcohol.

Here is the city policy regarding employee reimbursement from SimpliCity Employee Expense Reimbursement (EER) dated 4/14/2020:

“An employee expense claim can take the form of a travel expense per Financial Administrative Policy (FAP) #7, education expense, or other expenses such as vest/supplies/professional development/miscellaneous expense.”

Many years ago, the Glendale City Council adopted a policy that it, too, would be subject to the very same employee policies related to reimbursement for travel or any other legitimate expenditures.

The city’s Travel and Expense Reimbursement Policy dated 12/15/20 and last revised on 4/01/2022 states,

Purpose: “It is the duty of all travelers to carefully weigh any expenditure of public funds. Travel expenditures should only be incurred when there is a clear business need that benefits the city. It is the responsibility of the traveler to maintain correct and proper records to report only authorized city business related expenses when reporting expenses for travel. In addition, it is the employee responsibility when requesting reimbursement for expenses to make sure the expenditures reflect allowable City business, are documented and receive proper authorization.”

Application: “This policy is applicable to all City of Glendale employees, contract employees, temporary employees, agents, volunteers, and contractors unless otherwise specified. To the extent that elected officials resolve to follow this policy, certain exceptions may apply.”

Now that I have shared the responsibilities and requirements for the use of a city issued ProCard, in Part 2, we will take a deeper dive into Councilmember Turner’s use of his ProCard. Look for Part 2 to be posted soon.

^{© Joyce Clark, 2025}   

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