In Our View Nov. 13: Extravagant Travel

Why did it take the state auditor’s office in Olympia — and not local bean counters — to ferret out more than $15,000 in combined excess travel costs for 2005-2006 in the Evergreen and Vancouver school districts?

That’s the question that taxpayers, teachers and parents should ask. Superintendents, board members and administrators are quick to moan to taxpayers, “We’ve already cut our expenses all we can. We just can’t cut any further.”

Yes, you can, says state Auditor Brian Sonntag, whose office is commended for Wednesday’s report. Examining 13 districts around the state, the auditors “identified nearly $1.1 million in five-year cost savings that districts could use for other purposes.”

Here’s one excuse the kingly travelers might croak: In the overall scope of things, these savings are piddly. Evergreen’s $8,039 in excess travel costs, when viewed in the context of the $218 million budget for 2007-2008, is the statistical equivalent of someone who earns $50,000 a year wasting less than $2. But consider:

n The auditors examined only $69,846 of Evergreen’s $376,107 in travel costs for 2005-2006. What would they have found if they had examined all of it? As it is, excess travel costs constituted an alarming 11.5 percent of the amount examined. In the Vancouver school district, it was 9.4 percent.

n Even more crucial than numbers is the principle involved here. When extravagance is exposed, it just looks bad. And when the district officials go begging before taxpayers, it looks horrible. In the Vancouver district, a trip to Chicago involved five board members, three executives and the district foundation director. To their credit, they traveled on the first and last days of the conference instead of staying the full five days. But at one meal they reserved a private room for $200 and ran up a total tab of $450, or $50 per person. The next night, they spent $52 per person on a meal at a fancy seafood restaurant. At the time, the Chicago General Services Administration per diem was $31 per person.

We acknowledge that local officials are trying, but they’re not trying hard enough. In a reply letter, Evergreen CFO Mike Merlino pointed to the district’s strict controls on meal costs — in most cases. Room-sharing is encouraged, all travel must be pre-approved with full explanations. Also, “the district has already stopped out-of-town board retreats, implemented summer of 2007.”

But the state only looked at two of Clark County’s nine districts. We already know how the Battle Ground district backed away from a luxury retreat at the last minute after The Columbian reported on it. Who knows what the other districts might be doing?

Vancouver CFO Steven Olson pointed out in his letter that because travel costs were higher than expected for the 2006 Chicago trip, the trip to the 2007 conference was not attended.

And as Sonntag pointed out on a statewide basis, “almost all of the districts in the audit have a policy requiring employees to obtain lodging at reasonable rates,” although there is “a large variance in the way ‘reasonable’ is interpreted.”

But again, local officials are not trying hard enough. Sonntag wrote of the Vancouver district: “Had the cost savings reflected minimal amounts over GSA rates, the District would not have been included in this finding. But spending over $18,500 for nine people to attend a conference was the activity under question.”

Both districts said they will work hard to follow the audit’s recommendations. But from the taxpayers’ perspective, that would be only a minimal commitment. The more reasonable strategy under economic burdens that are this severe is to temporarily rule out virtually all travel of this type.