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Employee must repay taxpayers after review of travel expenses [Journal-News, Hamilton, Ohio]
[November 23, 2013]

Employee must repay taxpayers after review of travel expenses [Journal-News, Hamilton, Ohio]


(Hamilton Journal News (OH) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Nov. 23--BUTLER COUNTY -- City of Hamilton officials are revising the city's travel policy and forcing an employee to repay taxpayers for a plane ticket, following a Journal-News investigation into the travel expenses of Butler County governments.



Butler County's taxpayers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars sending public employees across the state and around the country so they can attend training and conference events.

The Journal-News reviewed out-of-town travel and training expenses costing more than $500 from Jan. 1, 2012, to Oct. 1, 2013, for Butler County; the two largest cities in the county, Hamilton and Middletown; and the two largest townships, West Chester and Liberty.


Across the board, police and sheriff departments in local governments tend to spend the most on out-of-town travel to investigate crimes, gain high-level training on polygraphs or topics such as gang trends.

The county, which has roughly 1,500 employees, spent more than any of the areas reviewed -- $178,000 -- on travel and training trips more than $500 from 2012 to 2013.

But how much each city, county and township spends on hotel, flight and conference fees varies widely, a Journal-News analysis found.

With a price tag of more than $120,000, the city of Hamilton spent twice as much as neighboring Middletown on travel since 2012.

A $1,129 ticket to Vegas Hamilton's City Manager Joshua Smith said he plans to clamp down on travel costs after reviewing findings from the Journal-News analysis.

Smith said he's already worked to reduce travel costs since he took over as Hamilton's city manager in late 2010. He found some trips in the city's Information Technology department to be unjustified so he reduced the department's budget from $9,200 in 2011 to $1,680 so far this year.

Still, some city departments have spent thousands of dollars to attend conferences, stay at upscale resorts and dine on expensive meals since 2012.

In May 2012, the city spent $4,100 to send two economic development employees to Las Vegas for the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Liberty Twp. paid for only one employee to attend the same conference. Liberty Twp., which doesn't have its own police department, has spent close to $10,000 on travel since 2012, including a $1,700 trip Economic Development Director Caroline McKinney took to Las Vegas for the conference. She stayed in a $149 per night hotel room at the Las Vegas Hotel and Casino during the trip.

Meanwhile, Hamilton's Economic Development Director, Jody Gunderson, attended the same conference and stayed at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, costing taxpayers $267 per night. Gunderson also booked, using a city credit card, a $1,129 multi-destination plane ticket that included a five-day personal stop in Minneapolis before returning to Dayton International Airport; the ticket was $520 more than the round-trip ticket his colleague booked for the same trip.

Former Finance Director Peg Hancock advised Gunderson that it was "not necessary" for him to pay the personal portion of his flight, Deputy City Manager Hillary Stevenson said in an email Friday.

When the Journal-News presented details of the trip to city officials, Stevenson said Gunderson was directed Friday, 18 months after the trip was taken, to repay $520.80 for the personal portion of the plane ticket. Gunderson had, at the time the trip was taken, paid only for $60 worth of parking at the airport.

That's not the only change that will happen for city employees, Smith said, after he reviewed years of travel records this past week.

The Journal-News found examples of a handful of pricey meals that exceed the rate the Internal Revenue Service recommends federal employees be reimbursed if they travel. This year, Bill Hudson, from the city's electric department spent $80 in one day on lunch and a room-service breakfast during a March trip to Kissimmee, Fla. Two days later, he spent $70 on a dinner. Hudson stated on his expense report that he didn't have a rental car to leave the $194 nightly room at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center, which drove the high meal costs.

Another trip taken by a different utilities employee to Indianapolis for a conference back in 2012, included a $47 dinner at the famous St. Elmo Steakhouse in Indianapolis on the taxpayer's dime.

Smith said he plans to add a new directive to the city's travel and training policy by the new year that will limit employees to spending the meal rate set by the IRS during travel.

"We just want to make the (rules) crystal clear going forward," Smith said.

'We're scaling back' In 2012, the city's Underground Utilities Director James Collins spent more than $7,000 of taxpayers' money attending a series of American Public Gas Association conferences in destinations like Savannah, Ga., and Couer d'Alene, Idaho.

One trip for the association's conference, taken last January with Butler County Administrator Charlie Young, who was then a city employee, to Jacksonville, Fla., cost taxpayers a total of $3,320. Collins and Young each stayed in a $246-per-night hotel room at the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club, which charges a $15 night resort fee and boasts a "white sandy beach," tennis, golf and an "award-winning spa." Collins, who served on the board for the American Public Gas Association, resigned from his Hamilton post in March.

Smith said another initiative he now plans to institute in the city's travel policy will direct employees who sit on boards or committees, like Collins did, to site a specific purpose for their travel to such national conferences.

"We will not allow that to be eligible for city reimbursement without clear benefit to the city on a go-forward basis," Smith said of certain conference trips.

Smith said new initiatives like that should decrease the city's travel budget next year.

The city, however, is still home to an extensive utilities system, which houses water, electric, gas and wastewater, that inherently makes travel and training expenses greater in Hamilton, said Doug Childs, who was promoted to the city's Director of Public Utilities and General Manager position in June.

Childs said those utility programs require frequent training. Travel for training in the utilities department is funded funded by residents who pay for utilities, not through tax dollars. Hamilton is the only city in Ohio to offer all of those services to residents.

Some conferences, he said, have saved taxpayers millions of dollars. He estimates the city has saved $11 million since officials attended a Phoenix, Arizona, conference in 2008 and were some of the first in the country to learn about a cheaper gas purchasing program.

"There are some conferences that are non-negotiable," Childs said. "But, I would say that we're scaling back on everything. I'm going to send people to conferences that are going to save or make more money than the cost or I'm not going to send people." 'We've really cut back on travel' In Middletown, where officials spent roughly $53,000 on out-of-town trips costing individuals more than $500, most departments have stopped traveling at all, Michelle Greis, the city's finance director said.

"We've really cut back on travel," Greis said. "As budgets started getting tight, that's one of the things we looked at and had to say, eh, we can do this in-house." Greis said next month, for example, she'll do training for $100 online for her and her assistant instead of attending the same event in Chicago, which would have cost taxpayers pricey hotel rooms, meals and mileage.

More than 60 percent of the 24 priciest trips taken where made by police or fire employees who attended various trainings.

"For police, because of the nature of what they do and all of the elements, we're very careful to make sure everyone has what they need as far as training," Greis said.

The priciest trip uncovered by the Journal-News analysis was taken by a Middletown police officer who attended an $11,220 polygraph training in Stockbridge, Georgia. That cost included the tuition for the training, mileage and meals and lodging for the officer for a period of three months.

West Chester Twp. officials have taken just three trips that cost more than $500 since 2012, for a total of $6,700. Two of those trips were taken by police employees. The township's police chief said he works on bringing training sessions, including polygraph training, to city employees so they can avoid travel.

New policies coming to Butler Butler County officials are working on a policy that might increase the commissioners' oversight of employee travel, County Administrator Charlie Young said. Commissioners approve travel for nearly all departments and offices in the county.

Commissioners have worked over the years to whittle down travel costs. In 2011, the travel and training expenditures for commissioner employees shrunk by 48 percent from the previous year. Today, of the 141 trips county employees took that cost more than $500, which carried a price tag of about $178,000, nearly half were required by state or federal law.

Young said county officials are working on a policy that would require travelers to give more detailed reports to commissioners on the costs associated with trips and training. Commissioners might also considered a policy that directs employees on when they should use county-owned cars for trips.

"The direction now is to keep travel at a minimum," Young said.

___ (c)2013 the Journal-News (Hamilton, Ohio) Visit the Journal-News (Hamilton, Ohio) at www.journal-news.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

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