Decatur amended its policy for using city-issued credit cards, reflecting specific requirements dictated by the new state law HB 192.

Credit cards are issued to city commissioners, the city manager and management-level staffers. The monthly credit card limit for commissioners is $3,000, but City Manager Peggy Merriss said that typically commissioners only spend a fraction of this over a year’s time.

Cards are mostly used for business meetings, education seminars and training events, she said, and the money comes out of the city’s general fund.

Merriss said the new policy isn’t much different from how the city previously handled credit cards.

“The big difference for us,” she said, “is that every person [issued] a card has to sign a statement indicating they understand the policy and procedures of using the card. We’ve never done that before.”

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Fulton DA Fani Willis (center) with Nathan J. Wade (right), the special prosecutor she hired to manage the Trump case and had a romantic relationship with, at a news conference announcing charges against President-elect Donald Trump and others in Atlanta, Aug. 14, 2023. Georgia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, upheld an appeals court's decision to disqualify Willis from the election interference case against Trump and his allies. (Kenny Holston/New York Times)

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