Town finances · Transparency
Every line, every month: reading Apex's P-card statements
The Town of Apex now posts its monthly purchasing-card statements online. Here is the September 2026 report, all 1,235 line items, with a guide to reading a line, the difference between a P-card and a purchase order, and why the Town puts purchases on the card.
A procurement card, or P-card, is a Town-issued payment card that authorized staff use to buy what their work needs: boots, lab chemicals, training seats, tools for trucks. On August 25, Town Manager Randy Vosburg told the Town Council that the statements would go on the Town website, with an October 1 goal. They are now on the Finance Department's Financial Reporting page, under “Monthly Procurement Card (P-Card) Statements.”
The report listed there now covers September 2026. Peak News Network read all 18 pages and tallied it.
Where to find it
On the Financial Reporting page
How to read it
Anatomy of one line
A real line from the September report. Tap a field to see what it means.
Who used the cards
September spending by department
Line items added up by the report's department groups (Parks, Police, Public Works and Water Resources each combine several groups). Tap a department to filter the explorer below.
Fire, Parks & Recreation and Police together account for about $80,000 of the month, roughly 41%. Finance's total includes bills it pays for the whole Town, such as an AT&T services bill and a Solid Waste truck registration.
Explore
Every September line item
Search descriptions and vendors, filter by department, sort by any column. Data transcribed from the Town's PDF; the PDF is the official record.
| Date | Department | What & why | Amount | Vendor |
|---|
Worth knowing
A P-card is how the Town pays, not how it approves
P-card
- A payment method
- Earns the Town a rebate on what is charged
- The statement has a column for the manager sign-off date
Purchase order
- The approval and tracking process
- Still required for big purchases
- Finance often pays an approved purchase order with the card
Because of the rebate, Apex tries to put as much as it can on P-cards, especially large transactions. That does not replace the purchase order: a large order still needs one, and the large card charges in a statement are often Finance paying purchase orders that were already approved.
The rebate
$150,318 back in fiscal 2025
The Town's audited financial report lists the procurement card rebate as General Fund revenue.
Why it matters
From an audit comment to a public statement
When the auditors presented the fiscal 2025 audit on May 28, 2026, their opinion on the financial statements was unmodified, with no material weaknesses. Among their “Other Comments,” they noted that the Town's card usage and review policies were not always followed, and that management had since acted to make sure required reviews happen and only authorized users hold cards.
Monthly public statements let anyone check the work, including the manager sign-off column. Mayor Pro Tem Terry Mahaffey summed up the audit this way the next day:
“strong finances matter, and so does transparency about them.”Terry Mahaffey, newsletter, May 29, 2026
Do it yourself
Look up a month in four steps
- Go to apexnc.org/1841 (Finance → Financial Reporting).
- Scroll to Monthly Procurement Card (P-Card) Statements and open the month.
- Lines are grouped by department; tax, fees, shipping and tips appear as separate lines under the same transaction number.
- Questions about a charge? Contact the Finance Department at Town Hall, 73 Hunter St., (919) 249-3315.
Bottom line
The everyday cost of running a town, in the open
September's statement reads like the work orders of a growing town: boots for water crews, chemicals for the reclamation lab, fire safety kits for schools, training for officers. The card is how the Town pays, the purchase order is how it approves, and the rebate is why the card gets used. Now the monthly record is there for anyone to read.
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