‘What’s the oversight?’: SJ employees spent millions on travel, entertainment, dinners

From Disney resorts to animal funeral services, San Jose City Hall employees spent millions with city credit cards this past year.

About a quarter of San Jose employees have city-funded credit cards, known as purchase cards or P-cards. The cards are typically issued to specific department representatives with intent to streamline small dollar purchases—mostly office supplies, tools, food, low-cost equipment and travel expenses. This is part of the 1990 statewide program with U.S. Bank that allows government employees to have credit cards with particular limits, such as a cap of $1,000 per transaction to prevent high purchase fraud. San Jose employees with P-cards are capped at $10,000 a month.