The Mandeville City Council met for the first time since the release of a state legislative auditor’s report and the attorney general began investigating the City of Mandeville.

Thursday, the St. Tammany District Attorney’s Office recused itself, a move the state Attorney General Buddy Caldwell called appropriate and anticipated.

For nearly 20 minutes, it was a very tense meeting inside the Mandeville City Council Chambers. On the same day that Caldwell announced he was launching a full investigation into the findings by the state legislative auditor.

The tension came when city Finance Director Milton Stiebing took the podium to talk about adding a written credit card policy. Councilmembers expressed disbelief that there was no written policy before Thursday evening.

“I had to assume we had a written policy for credit cards for the city,” said Councilwoman Carla Buchholz. “I am floored, I’m aghast, I am taken aback, as well as my constituents.”

Approximately 60 people showed up for the meeting, filling Council Chambers.  But only one man chose to speak.

“I’m almost embarrassed to say that I live in Mandeville, which is a terrible thing for me to have to deal with,” said Glen Runyon, a Mandeville resident.

Stiebling was grilled about undocumented use on city credit cards detailed in the audit.  He has been the finance director for 21 years, and he said that he didn’t know documentation was needed because laws change.

“When did the law change to require additional documentation?” Councilwoman Trilby Lenfant asked.

“I’m not sure,” Steibing replied.

The city adopted the new credit card policy. Lenfant called it the first step in a long process.

An audit report cites $51,000 in questionable personal purchases on city credit cards and another $14,000 in questionable personal purchases on another city account.

“I’m sure you can imagine since the audit has come out this council has been deluged with emails, phone calls and letters from citizens wanting to know why there were no internal controls over the city credit card use,” said Lenfant.

“There were controls. To some extent, the controls were not followed through,” Stiebing replied.

Steibing and Mandeville Mayor Eddie Price had the city’s only two credit cards and Steibing said he did not know what the limits on those cards were.

“Obliviously, it is very sad day for Mandeville, and I think it underscores the serious nature of the issues that are brought up in the audit,” said Lenfant.

Lenfant said she will go to Baton Rouge Friday and personally meet with Legislative Auditor Dan Daigle to look at his documentation to see how his audit office arrived at their conclusions.

Eddie Price did not appear at the meeting.