Dozens of trips among expenses charged to suburban school district

~ State data from the fall of 2002 to the summer of 2006 show the district spent $1.7 million in travel.

MOLINE ACRES, Mo. -- The Riverview Gardens public school district spent about $1.7 million on travel costs over four years, more than districts double its size.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch analyzed the suburban district's records and found that since 2003, Riverview has sent almost 600 teachers, administrators and board members on more than 100 trips to at least 60 cities, from Lake of the Ozarks to Cape Town, South Africa.

Missouri state auditors concluded that the district spent $865,000 on travel over two years. The newspaper's analysis of four years of records showed the full scope of travel doubles that figure.

"Some days you wondered who was holding down the fort," said Riverview Gardens board member Mary Oswald. There was little discussion, she said, about why they were going or how much they could spend.

"It was, 'Hey, we've got money. We've got a plane. Let's go!"' she said.

The total bill was almost impossible to pin down with records often mislabeled or difficult to track. But state data from the fall of 2002 to the summer of 2006 show the district spent $1.7 million in travel.

District reprimanded

In March, auditors released their findings and reprimanded the district for wasting millions of dollars, and cited Superintendent Henry Williams for $150,000 extra paid to his personal accounts.

Board members decried Williams' actions and removed him.

According to district records, others also were spending freely. Over four years, eight board members went on at least 100 trips.

Many trips allowed teachers to learn classroom skills while staying in dorm rooms. But in other cases, leaders stayed at plush resorts with flat-screen TVs and golf-course views. They ate meals with $8 glasses of wine, $28 entrees of rock shrimp and shaved fennel and $10 desserts.

Former administrators said travel increased in July 2002, when Williams was hired as superintendent.

The Post-Dispatch said his district credit card statements included trips to Sante Fe, N.M., Atlanta, London, San Francisco, Sedona, Ariz., New Orleans and Reno, Nev.

In July 2004, he flew to Jackson, Wyo., for a conference titled "Education as a Human Right." Williams arrived two days before the event started, rented a car, drove 165 miles and billed the district for food, often two meals at one sitting, including snacks inside Yellowstone National Park.

Safari in South Africa

His airport parking slip says he returned to St. Louis on July 12, two days before the four-day conference ended. About a week later, Williams left for an education symposium and safari in South Africa.

Over four years he got $4,850 in advances, records show.

In all, he turned in receipts for $3,350 but $1,300 of that was actually charged to the district's credit card. That means only about $2,000 of Williams' cash advances were accounted for.

Riverview district records tie him to at least 44 trips costing $44,000 over the four years.

In March, the board removed Williams. He was later arrested and charged with attempting to evade income taxes and stealing $100,000 from the district, mostly in money funneled to his personal life insurance accounts.

Williams has been removed from larger school districts before, including Kansas City's.

He was superintendent of the Syracuse, N.Y., public schools for almost five years until the early 1990s. According to news accounts, board members said he spent money without board approval.

In 1993, he was hired to run schools in Little Rock, Ark. Two years later, the board voted not to extend his $115,000 contract.

He was hired by the Kansas City School Board in 1996. A former school board president said questions arose about Williams hiring companies with which he had personal ties. In 1998, the board voted to buy out Williams' contract for $165,000.

In July 2002, Riverview Gardens appointed Williams as interim superintendent. A few months later, he was given the permanent job.

But it wasn't just Williams who was traveling in the Riverview Gardens district.

St. Louis University professor William Rebore, an expert on school finance, said it was reasonable for board members to go to one national conference and one state conference each year.

SInking finances

But in Riverview, only Selena Melton, one of the newest board members, took two trips yearly, according to district records. The others traveled as many as eight times each year.

Financial records linked board member Marlene Terry to 23 trips from January 2003 to this March.

Travel was not about money, Terry said; it was about better serving her district. She said it wasn't until recently that anyone really knew how far district finances had sunk.

At the end of the 2004-2005 school year, Riverview had $12 million in reserves, or about 20 percent of the district's $61 million operating fund.

But over the next two years, the district spent at an alarming rate. By March, the district projected a year-end balance of $1.6 million in reserves.

No one is suggesting that travel alone sank Riverview. Over those two years, the district overpaid employees; hired extra staff not in the budget; failed to seek bids for services; and made multimillion-dollar mistakes in its budgets, according to state auditors.

Last fall, a new chief financial officer, Cedric Lewis, stopped giving cash advances and said he started accurately tracking expenses.

So, when Lewis' staff spotted two pedicures on a credit card bill in January, he sent letters asking for reimbursements.

What happened next is unclear. Board member Terry said a principal, Christopher Petty, had paid cash for the pedicures. Petty said he paid for his own, but not Terry's. Lewis said shortly thereafter, the hotel credited $100 to the district.

In March, the board appointed two new superintendents. They hired forensic auditors to find out what went wrong over Williams' tenure. The board also froze all out-of-state travel.