Finance director pitches AI for p‑card oversight, vendor ACH savings and cites $5.9M utility write‑off

The Finance director (role label) told the advisory board the department is not seeking new recurring staff but highlighted operational improvements and one‑time cleanups.

The department is piloting an AI tool to analyze p‑card and vendor data in near real time to detect split transactions, duplicates and policy violations; staff said a one‑year pilot is under negotiation with a possible five‑year pricing term thereafter. “Instead of paying an outside consultant to audit once a year, I want more real time data analytics with an AI tool,” the director said.

On payments, the director proposed a vendor ACH program to reduce check printing, mailing and staff time; the presentation estimated about $50,000 in annual savings from cutting paper check costs and staff time compared with current check processing. The director said the city hopes to enroll a large share of vendors and estimated an objective of roughly 75% vendor enrollment over time, while acknowledging some contract constraints.

Finance also told the board it wrote off about $5.9 million in aged tenant receivables last year to clean data ahead of a new utility billing (CIS) implementation. The director said the old system could not perform write‑offs and manual work was required to clean records so the new system can operate with current data.

The director reported the monthly financial close has improved from more than 120 days to about 68 days and the department’s goal is 45 days, attributing the improvement to recent hires and ERP stabilization. She also noted a recent banking contract change produced roughly $300,000 extra interest in February–March after the bank began paying higher rates.

Why it matters: the proposals aim to reduce fraud/risk, improve timeliness of audits and reporting, and lower ongoing payment costs while cleaning legacy data ahead of a billing system replacement.