- December 4, 2025
Daytona Beach’s internal auditor will be reviewing purchases made on city credit cards after a commissioner brought forward concerns of excessive and unauthorized spending.
At the end of the Daytona Beach Commission’s Nov. 5 meeting, Zone 4 Commissioner Stacy Cantu said she was reviewing the city’s contract with marina management company F3 Marina and noticed odd charges to city P-cards. P-cards are city-issued credit cards, but, Cantu said, the charges included shopping trips, cell phone bills and other purchases.
“I started looking up the policies and I've checked the contract,” Cantu said. “Nowhere in this contract that we approved states that the contractor's employees get credit cards.”
Typically, cities will reimburse contractors for expenses. But Cantu said her records showed purchases of hundreds of dollars for meals, grocery stores and online purchases. And not just contractors – an employee card had a charge for three people to go golfing, Cantu said.
Cantu said she saw instances where P-cards were charged tens of thousands of dollars in a year, and alleged that receipts were missing from the charges as well. In her personal opinion, she said, it almost looks like some of the charges were meant to avoid bringing items through to the commission.
“I think we need some oversight on these P-Cards,” Cantu said.
That will be where City Auditor Abinet Belachew comes in. The commission asked Belachew to step in and review both the city’s P-card policy, how the funds are used and if they are being used for personal expenses.
Belachew said his auditing process will “look at everything,” from who receives the cards and how, to the kinds of purchases made. It will start with whether the city has a proper policy in place.
“Say for instance if the city has a policy contradictory to the prudent use of public resource,” he said, “my recommendation will include [that] the city manager needs to update the policy and the procedure.”
In the meantime, Cantu asked for the consent from the commission to halt the P-Cards for the F3 Marina contractors in particular, but City Manager Deric Feature said they had already been paused.
Feature said he did not want to get into the discussion until after Belachew had a chance to review the charges. As far as the alleged golf tournament charges, though, he said, there are city-sponsored events where the city purchases space for certain city employees to attend.
“There are numerous events that people go through for the city that we sponsor a table or we sponsor a golf tournament,” he said. “I just want us to be clear because when we put things out in the open, there has to be some context to it.”
Zone 5 Commissioner Dannette Henry agreed that the context is important. Just recently, she said, she and some staff were at a city event and that the P-card was likely used to make purchases for that event.
“You may think and it could sound like, oh, this person is just keep swiping and swiping and swiping,” Henry said. “But context matters.”
Cantu said she agreed – especially when charges are made at department stores and shoe stores.
When Belachew asked the commission if they wanted to make this the priority over other projects, Mayor Derrick Henry said he felt it was important, but so is Belachew’s other work.
“I don't believe that our building is burning down,” Mayor Henry said.
