Records show lax oversight of Lansing city credit cards has persisted for years

The criminal case against a former Lansing police lieutenant in 2025 revealed issues with employee use of city credit cards.
Mayor Andy Schor has said he’s comfortable with the city’s financial oversight and the former police lieutenant reflected an isolated incident.
However, in early 2020, a forensic audit into a high ranking official’s credit card use revealed issues with improper spending.
LANSING — Mayor Andy Schor said this summer that a former police lieutenant’s use of a city credit card for personal reasons, which was revealed through a criminal embezzlement case, was an isolated incident.
However, records obtained by the State Journal show there were concerns more than five years earlier about credit card use by one of the city’s top officials.
In 2020, Joan Jackson Johnson, then the city’s longtime director of human relations and community services, was placed on administrative leave following a federal investigation and forensic audit of her department’s transactions.
The auditors the city of Lansing hired kept their review to its scope — contracts she oversaw and possible conflicts of interest that resulted in the city repaying $234,000 to the federal government — but they also learned that she made about $100,000 in credit card purchases in 2015 or 2016 related to a grant and could only provide acceptable documentation for about $15,000 of the spending.
The $100,000 was not out of the norm for Jackson Johnson, who was never charged, retired in 2020 and died in 2022. Her last three years of purchases on her city issued credit card, from 2017 to late November 2019, totaled $583,000.
The discovery by auditors of the undocumented spending by Jackson Johnson revealed a significant gap in internal controls that auditors in 2020 felt compelled to document. More than five years later, a State Journal investigation following former Lt. Ryan Wilcox’s criminal case revealed that the city’s loose enforcement of its credit card policies and financial oversight measures might have allowed his embezzlement to persist.
City officials have given conflicting statements in recent weeks about Jackson Johnson’s city issued card. They have also refused to answer questions about the exact reason it was revoked and any changes to city policies that may have been made as a result.
Credit card issues involve multiple employees
Wilcox was charged with a felony in February and pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor that allowed him to receive his full pension after he was accused of widespread theft and misuse of public resources. He was sentenced in May.
The State Journal’s reporting since the case ended revealed Wilcox also used his city card extensively, including to buy covert cameras and vehicle trackers that state police believe he used to spy on his ex-wife and her new boyfriend.
The State Journal’s reporting identified questionable purchases on Wilcox’s city card beyond the spy cameras. He spent $105,000 in the 2 ½ years before he was put on leave, which included 165 Amazon charges for $31,114 and a $179 charge for Clear, a private company that helps travelers get through airport security more quickly, similar to TSA PreCheck.
The city has had other missteps involving its credit cards:
The city paid a nearly $4,000 fee in August 2024 because it was late to pay its credit card bill to PNC Bank, an issue the city said was an oversight, but was being looked into.
The city card for Fire Chief Brian Sturdivant, who returned to work on Nov. 11, following 2½ months on a personal leave the city has declined to explain, was charged $289 by Doubletree Hotels on Sept. 16, despite his leave. In an email, Schor spokesperson Scott Bean said Sturdivant was scheduled to attend a conference, but