HOUSTON \u2013 One Houston city employee, working in Public Works, used his city-issued credit card to buy 190 of the same drill set. Not one. Not a few extras. One hundred and ninety, let that sink in for a second. <\/p>\n
So how did no one catch it? That\u2019s exactly what we wanted to know at ENOUGH. <\/p>\n
What the director saidHouston Public Works employees accused of using city cards to buy, resell tools. KPRC2 tracked $346,000 in duplicate tool purchases. (Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n
When our Investigative Reporter Amy Davis broke this story, we went straight to Houston Public Works Director Randy Macchi. His explanation came down to size. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think size has got a little bit to do with it. It\u2019s the largest civilian department. It\u2019s also the one that is most field operational,\u201d Macchi said. <\/p>\n
The numbers<\/p>\n
From 2024-2025, 338 employees held a combined 425 city-issued credit cards. More than 30 of those employees had more than one card. <\/p>\n
Here is how it is supposed to work. Every employee is required to get a supervisor\u2019s approval before making any purchase. The system is clear on paper. But somewhere between approval and checkout, 190 drill sets walked out of the door. <\/p>\n
The drill sets are jarring, but they are not the whole story. A city-wide efficiency study found something much larger hiding in plain sight.<\/p>\n
$613 million in city purchases found not to comply with Houston\u2019s own standards. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s $613 million dollars in purchases that didn\u2019t follow the rules. Not in one department, it was city-wide. <\/p>\n
Where things standHouston Public Works employees accused of using city cards to buy, resell tools. KPRC2 tracked $346,000 in duplicate tool purchases. (Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n
The employee who bought the drill sets has resigned, with charges pending. We\u2019re not identifying the man because of that. When we caught up with him he pointed the finger elsewhere. <\/p>\n
\u201cAll of my purchases have went through my manager. So how about you go contact my manager,\u201d he told our Amy Davis. <\/p>\n
Macchi tells us when it comes to that manager and others, \u201cThere will be accountability all across the board.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 One Houston city employee, working in Public Works, used his city-issued credit card to buy 190…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[94707,56,58,57,19293,44072],"class_list":{"0":"post-249458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-enough","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-headlines","11":"tag-houston-news","12":"tag-houston-public-works","13":"tag-randy-macchi"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}