1. What did Metro Nashville spend the $4 million on?
A: Over $600,000 on hotels, over $400,000 on airlines
The largest purchase by far was over $318,000 at Southwest Airlines.
The next four largest purchases were all at hotels – a collective $270,000
Many of the hotel rooms were purchased by the Office of Family Safety, Office of Emergency Management, Social Services, the Public Defender and the courts, presumably to place people in need with temporary housing, along with the Sheriff and Police at places like Red Roof Inn, Hilton and Marriott.
But you also had various departments spend almost $25,000 at 4-star Omni hotels, IT Services spend $4,400 at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, a 5-star hotel and casino, Health Department spent over $2,000 at the 4-start Paris Las Vegas hotel and casino, Several depts spent $2,400 at 4-star MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, $4,400 by HR and Social Services at Harrah’s Hotel and Casino.
$328,707 was spent on over 12,000 transactions at Amazon — more than previous years.
$30,000 at Facebook
$100,000 in food ‑ almost $15,000 at Chick-fil-A, $11,000 at Jason’s Deli
2. How does this compare to credit card spending in previous years?
A: It has never been this high of $4 million. In FY 2016, credit card spending was $2.3 million – it dropped year after year down to $1.2 million in FY 2021. But since then, it has been going back up – almost doubling in FY 2022 to $2.2 M, then $3.4 M in FY 2023 and now $4M in FY 2024.