COASTAL OBSERVER

What can you buy for $1,150 at a dollar store? Bill Chaplin would like to know.

That was part of over $257,000 spent by the Georgetown County School District last month using “procurement cards.” It’s a streamlined payment system through Wells Fargo that the district adopted 15 years ago for purchases up to $2,500. 

The P-cards, as they are known, caught the attention of Chaplin, a member of the executive committee of the county Republican Party, after he started looking at school finances last fall.

“They are very transparent,” he said. “They post every month on their website.”

But the effort at transparency raised more questions for Chaplin, who said he used to work as a corporate troubleshooter. That work “uncovered issues that you had to look beyond the surface to get to the problem,” he explained.

On the surface, the school district showed how it spent $2.8 million of its $117 million operating budget last year with P-cards. What it didn’t do is show what it bought or who bought it.

“They spend an average of $11,000 a month at Walmart,” Chaplin said, “Approximately the same amount at Amazon.”

Food purchases average over $10,000 a month, he said.  Pizza and Chick-fil-A are popular, but purchases also include other restaurants and grocery stores. 

Although he was told that much of the food is purchased for booster clubs, he said there is no way to know from the online documents that the clubs reimbursed the district.

After reviewing a year of P-card transactions, he counted an average of 124 nights a month in hotel stays and 21 airline tickets.

“I don’t know where it’s going, who’s going, who’s staying or anything. All I know is they’ve bought a hotel room,” Chaplin said.

He knows that some are in Boston, New York, San Diego, New Orleans and Las Vegas. Others are in Charleston and even Myrtle Beach.

Chaplin this week told the county GOP Club, whose members get email updates on his findings, that he asked the district for details of the P-card transactions.

“I have asked so many questions, they finally told me, You will have to use the Freedom of Information Act,” he said.

He has spent $657.27 so far on two requests for details on P-card transactions.

“Since they started charging me, I know I’m looking in the wrong places for them,” Chaplin said.

But he made it clear that he doesn’t suspect that there is fraud in the P-card spending.

The district policy on the use of P-cards requires that the schools and departments that have them – Chaplin said he was told there are more than 100 in the district – keep a monthly log to show which employees receive the cards. They are supposed to be checked in and out by everyone except district administrators and facilities staff.

But receipts are required to be turned in along with notice of P-card purchases.

“I think it’s a cultural issue with them spending too much money and not paying attention,” Chaplin said.

But two items in his latest records request to the district are ones he thinks are worth particular attention: $1,442 spent at the Kennedy Center in December 2024 and $800 spent at the LA Clippers last October.

“Please tell me it’s a nail salon,” Chaplin said of the latter.

Whether a salon or an NBA basketball team, district records show the $800 was refunded on Dec. 30. So was the Kennedy Center purchase.

“It’s raised a lot of eyebrows, and it’s raised some very insightful questions and important questions,” School Board Member Scott DuBose told the GOP Club.

DuBose said he and Board Member Eileen Johnson met last week with Superintendent Bethany Giles to discuss those questions. They would also like details about the P-card program.

A key concern, he said, “was the appearance of Georgetown County School District culture accustomed to casually and wastefully spending money with no oversight.”

DuBose also said he doesn’t think there are fraudulent transactions, adding “quite honestly, I don’t expect to find any.”

P-cards are common in government and business. Chaplin compared Georgetown County School District’s reports with those for Richland 1 and Darlington County districts. The larger Richland 1 district spends only about $70,000 a month through P-cards. Darlington, which is about the same size a Georgetown, spent just over $700,000 a year through the cards, about a quarter of what Georgetown spends.

“Maybe they write more checks,” Chaplin said.

DuBose said he and Weaver shared that information with Giles along with the fact that the other districts make public the names of the employees who use the P-cards.

In Georgetown County School District, “you only see what it got spent on. You don’t know whether a person made 50 purchases or just one. And so it’s not ideal accounting,” DuBose said.

Giles took over as superintendent last year after serving as deputy superintendent. She didn’t get her own deputy until this summer. 

“She’s had a lot on her plate,” DuBose said.

He is optimistic that Giles will change the system to provide more transparency on spending.

“In fact, she said in the meeting some of these things, the way we’re accounting for things, ‘I think we can make those changes fairly quickly. Other things may take time, so just be patient,’” DuBose said.

Asked to comment on Chaplin’s work, the district said in a statement that it “remains committed to fiscal responsibility and transparency. Our goal is to ensure that financial resources are used efficiently and effectively to maximize student outcomes. The district consistently reviews and monitors its practices to ensure compliance with all applicable regulations and guidelines, and we will continue to make adjustments as needed to maintain accountability and build trust with our stakeholders.”