DeKalb County Commissioner Elaine Boyer says she and her top aide will temporarily stop using their county Visa cards, which they have been accused of abusing.
Boyer and her chief of staff, Robert Lundsten, have come under scrutiny after an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found the commissioner charged thousands of dollars in personal purchases, and that both of them spent more than $11,000 on restaurant meals over a two-year period.
“Effective immediately,” Boyer said in a written statement released Friday afternoon, “I am ordering a suspension of all P-card use by my office. Neither I, nor any of my staff, will use a P-card for any expenses whatsoever until the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners has adopted a clear policy for permissible use of the county P-cards.”
Her announcement came as the AJC questioned interim Chief Executive Officer Lee May and commissioners about why her card hadn’t been revoked. They responded that they have no such power over another elected official.
Boyer signed an agreement in 2010 with the Purchasing and Contracting Department, which administers the cards, agreeing not to use it for personal purchases and acknowledging that "DeKalb County may terminate my right to use this card at any time for any reason at its sole discretion."
The commissioner did not immediately respond to questions about whether anyone asked her to stop using the cards, or if she will turn them in to the county or just not put any more charges on them.
Her announcement also comes as a coalition of DeKalb County watchdog groups seeks to have her booted from office.
Two men lodged complaints against her and Lundsten with the Board of Ethics, saying the commissioner violated her oath of office and her aide used his position for special privileges.
The complaints cited the AJC, whose investigation found Boyer spent more than $12,000 on personal purchases, including airline tickets, rental cars and a ski resort booking. Some of the purchases were made while Boyer and her husband were having financial problems.
The commissioner reimbursed many of the charges within days, weeks or months, but she paid back about $4,000 after the AJC began asking questions. She told Channel 2 Action News that “it never dawned on me that what I was doing was wrong.”
Thomas Owens of Doraville and Joseph Newton of Norcross, who filed the ethics complaints, have the backing of Joel Edwards of Restore DeKalb and Viola Davis of the DeKalb Unhappy Taxpayer and Voter group. They want Boyer removed from office, which the Ethics Board can do.
They are also asking the board to audit Boyer’s Visa card use, require her and Lundsten to pay back improper charges, find out whether any other commissioners or their staffers have misused their cards, refer the case to the district attorney for possible prosecution, and request that the county’s policy for purchasing cards be revised to cover commissioners.
The purchasing department director, Kelvin Walton, and commissioners say the current policy only applies to employees under the CEO, not to elected officials and their staffers.
Newton said they included Lundsten in the complaints because he not only put too many meal charges on his card, but he appears to have used it for personal auto repair.
“This is knowingly, deliberately and willfully violating the law,” Newton said.
Lundsten said the complaints against him are the latest in ongoing personal attacks by Owens and Newton, whom he has sparred with for years. He said their disputes have involved a mosque near Owens’ home and Dunwoody’s attempts to buy out apartments on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard.
But he also acknowledged that he might need to repay the county for some of his purchases. He said he charged $68 at Jim Ellis Volkswagen in March 2012 because, at the time, he thought that was allowable if he used his vehicle for work.
Lundsten said he thought he already repaid a $57 towing charge in December — the result of a late-night breakdown. Told that no such reimbursements appear in county records, he said he will pay the money back if he confirms that his check never cleared.
In late March, he repaid $83 of a $104 charge to River Street Sweets after acknowledging to the AJC that part of the purchase was for a family member. In that case, too, he said he thought he had reimbursed it earlier.
“I’m going to have no problem going in front of the ethics commission, showing them what (Owens and Newton) have done and what this is all about,” Lundsten said. “And as I said, I’ve been there for three years. If I have $50 or something in outstanding stuff that I’ve already taken steps to correct, OK, then I’ll correct it.”
Boyer has not consented to interviews since the AJC published its investigation findings.
“In my 20-plus years of service to the people of DeKalb County,” her statement Friday said, “I have always been frugal, transparent, and accountable. I deeply regret that any of my actions have led to the misperception that I was abusing the trust the voters have placed in me.”
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