Lancaster County Sheriff Attacks Reporting, Defends Credit Card Use at Public Meeting | Local News

Lancaster County Sheriff Chris Leppler on Tuesday vigorously defended his use of a county-issued credit card that was the subject of the recent LNP | LancasterOnline reported that various items he purchased with the card in 2023 were charged and that a newspaper article wrongly implied otherwise.

It was the first time Leppler spoke publicly about items purchased with his card, despite repeated questions sent to him before April 20, when LancasterOnline published an article about the work of the county comptroller’s office to provide oversight of the ” “Shopping card” or P- to improve. Map, program.

Leppler’s P-Card purchases were the focus of the story because many of his 25 different transactions last year did not reveal the purpose of the thousands-of-dollar expenditures. Two previous audits of the county in 2023 and 2019 found poor compliance and a lack of clear guidelines for the use of county-issued cards in general.

Among the purchases highlighted in the April 20 story was about $3,000 the sheriff spent on building materials and other items at Home Depot.

Leppler read a prepared statement during the commissioners’ work session Tuesday, calling the reporting “scurrilous” and “baseless” and accusing the reporter of being biased against Republican officials.

“We provide the necessary documentation for every purchase made,” Leppler said.

Leppler, supported by Commissioners Josh Parsons and Ray D’Agostino, repeatedly said the LNP story was intentionally written to mislead readers that the sheriff had stolen or illegally purchased items with taxpayer money.

“The underlying allegation therein was that (Leppler) or someone else in the sheriff’s office had stolen these things, and that was false, that was a lie, and it was easy to determine that that was a lie,” Parsons said.

But in the month since LNP | LancasterOnline first contacted Leppler on April 1 to ask about his P-Card purchases. He declined to be interviewed or answer questions on the topic.

Among the questions the sheriff’s office and commissioners’ office did not respond to before publishing the April 20 story was the question about a lobby area at the sheriff’s offices in the courthouse.

County Controller Lisa Colón said last month that LNP Leppler’s Home Depot purchases last year were earmarked for construction of that reception area. Based on Colón’s statement, the reporter visited the lobby area on April 17 and did not see the items listed in the Home Depot receipts.

Leppler said Tuesday that the lobbying work was actually completed in 2020. On Tuesday, Colón blamed this on a misunderstanding. She said she did not specifically ask the sheriff about 2023 purchases and that her conversation with him was more general in nature.

“I said, ‘How much are Home Depot’s various expenses? “I know you were working in your office,” he says. “That was for the reception area,” Colón said after Tuesday’s meeting. “But I think he didn’t just set it for 2023, and I didn’t know when the reception area was ready, I just asked a blanket (question), so I think there’s confusion.”

Colón confirmed LNP | LancasterOnline had asked her about Home Depot purchases starting in 2023.

Leppler and the two Republican commissioners did not directly dispute other details of the April 20 story, including several instances in which no clear purpose was apparent in Leppler’s purchases and that two previous audits of the entire P-Card program by the Office of the Attorney General Controllers showed frequent compliance violations in a sample of purchases and no clear policies or disciplinary measures for their use.

Purchases explained

Leppler said his staff has completed construction projects in his office for the past six years and that they were overseen by the county’s Facilities Management Department. He said county officials provided him with spending figures showing his employees completed more than half a million dollars’ worth of construction work for less than $40,000. He did not share how those savings were calculated.

The April 20 report mentioned a purchase of 40 square feet of gray vinyl flooring valued at $114.32, according to a receipt from Home Depot dated February 13, 2023. Leppler said he purchased vinyl flooring for a “gun room, two offices and in our office K-9 unit,” but did not link that work to purchases starting in 2023.

Leppler said garage shelves are used to store items for the department’s 22-vehicle fleet. “They replaced orange lockers that had to be at least 50 years old and were rusted and falling apart,” he said.

Leppler pointed to two commercial water hoses mentioned in the April 20 story and said they were installed in the department’s garage. “The hoses have multiple uses, such as washing out the back of our vans when occupants use them as a toilet or when occupants become ill,” Leppler said.

Cleaning products purchased by Leppler at Home Depot are used for cleaning when the county contractor is unavailable, the sheriff said.

T-shirts and apparel purchases in 2023 purchased with Leppler’s P-Card were intended for deputies and employees who were not in uniform to represent the office, he said. According to payment records, Leppler spent more than $3,200 on these clothes in 2023. Branded merchandise for sale in the sheriff’s reception area is intended for the department’s K-9 unit, which receives donations from the proceeds of those merchandise sales, Leppler said.

The sheriff said an April 2023 receipt for 30 YETI cups purchased at Dick’s Sporting Goods for $1,123.50 was intended for gifts to retiring employees or a token of appreciation for deputies who represent the office well, and an attempt to improve morale, he said.

And he said an apparel order from Fivoux Apparel was for employees and deputies to represent the department at outside events and public appearances, but did not address the receipt he submitted for the $1,020 order , which simply said “LCSO x 1.”

Go forward

In his prepared remarks, Leppler said he would no longer answer questions from the LNP LancasterOnline reporter who wrote the April 20 story. Commissioner Ray D’Agostino said later in the meeting that he would no longer answer the reporter’s questions, regardless of the venue.

Commissioner Alice Yoder said only that the April 20 LNP story prompted county leaders to consider improving oversight of P-cards.

“I think the only thing that came out of it was, in my opinion, we’re just looking at the policy to see if we can somehow tighten it up, you know? I think it will help all of us, and that’s always a good thing,” Yoder said.

Colón said at Tuesday’s meeting that she can take action against suspected fraud or theft herself and can also refer a suspected case to the district attorney and the commissioner’s office.

“Until the audits we conducted, we never noticed any of this at any point in time,” Colón said, although she said audits look at sample sizes of purchases, not all of them.

Regard: The exchange described in the story begins at timecode 00:53:45 in this video posted online by the county.