Much of the spending on Dunedin City Council credit cards will be legitimate and fair, even given the responsibilities of a public organisation spending ratepayer money.
It might well be, too, that the use of credit cards and therefore the electronic recording of expenses is more efficient than cumbersome, old-fashioned expense and reimbursement mechanisms.
Nonetheless, some of the spending itself - as well as the lack of effective oversight - is disturbing.
It is indicative of spendthrift attitudes.
It is a sign that the council does not make every dollar count.
It illustrates that claims council staff limit spending as much as possible are false.
Of the $534,000 that 36 senior managers and four personal assistants spent via cards over three years, chief executive Jim Harland himself has identified $7000 of "fuzzy" spending, notably staff holding meetings at coffee bars.
While Mr Harland is correct to point out that different people will have different opinions on what is appropriate, the figure of concern could well be much, much higher.
Buying Christmas and farewell presents for staff on the ratepayer does not seem right.
Nor do the large number of costly thank-you meals for staff, the movie tickets and other so-called performance rewards.
The rewards - at 1.5% of the payroll of about $40 million - might at first glance seem reasonably small.
But when expressed in dollars, $600,000, the amount is substantial and has to come from somewhere.
What is especially concerning is the underlying attitude that relatively small amounts appear not to matter.
An insidious spending culture grows; a cup of coffee here, a painting there.
This inability to keep the reins tight is so easily reflected in other ways. Most council staff, for example, have received relatively generous wage increases in recent years, including in 2009 when many workers in Dunedin received nothing.
Similarly, staff numbers keep increasing, with figures released to the Otago Daily Times in March showing the council has added the equivalent of 86 staff since 2004, pushing its total number of full-time equivalent employees from 601 to 687.
Extraordinarily, the council operates 206 credit cards.
When Dunedin is committed to the huge expense of a new stadium, it had, and has, to curtail other projects and, crucially, its core costs.
Instead, budgets, including credit-card spending, keep rising.
Alarming, too, is the claim that two years ago Mr Harland was warned about the staff frequenting of coffee shops and that it took questions from this newspaper for some of the mis-spending to become apparent.
While credit cards might provide a cheap, electronic way to process expenses, more vigilance than ever is required.
It is too easy just to swipe the card and record the reason, avoiding all the hassle of order and expense forms and the like.
Where, then, was the firm oversight of the chief executive? At the risk of seeming niggardly, he has to keep pressure on the managers, increasing the likelihood that they in turn keep a close and robust eye on their staff.
Ratepayers must be fearful about the managers' prudence with their staff and the spending on the 166 other council credit cards for which we have yet to see details.
Human tendencies being what they are, exacerbated by the modern widespread sense of entitlement, the use of credit cards without the strictest of controls is asking for trouble.
No doubt many staff are indignant that what they see as their right is being questioned.
Many, inevitably, think they operate like those in the business world and that providing hospitality and generous "rewards" is part of the way to grease the wheels of commerce. Usually, though, businesses provide products and services in a competitive market and profit and sales can be a salutary and meaningful constraint on business activity.
Council staff, in contrast, are public servants providing services for or on behalf of their fellow citizens.
In most cases, Dunedin residents and businesses have little choice but to deal with them and, through rate increases, councils have a captive source of income.
It is all too easy to be generous or imprudent with other people's money.
As Labour Party leader Phil Goff said recently in the context of Chris Carter's credit-card spending: "taxpayers in New Zealand have the right to expect their money to be spent frugally and with reserve".
The challenge for the city council staff from the chief executive down is to apply the same approach. Every dollar counts.
