School Closings and $1.3 Million in Travel expense?!

As Detroit students did without, district spent $1.3 million on trips
"I can't get hand sanitizer for my kids. ... That is a disgrace." Heather Miller, a math teacher at DPS Marquette Elementary

February 9, 2007
BY JENNIFER DIXON and CHASTITY PRATT
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS

During the same period, district officials rang up another $240,000 for catering. The tab included $100,000 to an unlicensed Eastpointe business based in the home of a Detroit elementary school principal.

Beyond that, records show the district spent $700,000 on travel to conferences and other events across the country, from San Diego to Miami to Reno, Nev. The district curtailed out-of-town spending last month after the Free Press began scrutinizing expenses.

In all, Detroit Public Schools spent more than $1.3 million for travel, hotels, workshops and catered meals while the district faced the nation's worst school financial crisis, shuttered schools and lost students by the thousands.

District officials said federal, state and local grants paid for nearly all travel and hotel costs.

Government education officials, however, said much of the grant money could have helped students more directly, as in hiring more teachers to reduce class sizes or by purchasing special-education equipment. The district can hire a starting teacher for about $70,000 a year in pay and benefits.

DPS officials acknowledge they had discretion in how to spend the money. But district spokesman Lekan Oguntoyinbo insisted the district kept a close eye on expenses and spent the money to improve student achievement.

"We're not doing anything here that is unethical, illegal or a disservice to the taxpayers," he said.

"We're spending these funds judiciously."

Not wrong, but excessive?

Critics said they have no quarrel with teachers, administrators and board members' need to get professional training, some of which is not always available locally or online. The spending was a sliver of the district's $1.3-billion budget. Even so, the critics said, it seemed excessive in a financial crisis.

Tom Watkins, former state superintendent, said justifying travel by citing a grant is a "game that people use -- 'The grant made me do it.' "

Watkins said he couldn't imagine that a private foundation or educational agency would refuse to let a district spend its grant money on necessities like teachers and equipment instead of a trip or a catered luncheon.

"It's a matter of priorities," Watkins said.

Even some DPS board members questioned the wisdom and volume of the spending. The district lost $100 million in state funding this year because of declining enrollment and is proposing to close 52 school buildings.

"We just have to do a better job all the way around, being more efficient in spending dollars," board member Tyrone Winfrey said. "We have to make sure we take the children into account first."

Board President Jimmy Womack said that regardless of whether grants were used, the spending must be wise.

"What was the money for? Could it have been used in a better way?" Womack asked.

Since early January, the Free Press sought records related to the Detroit area hotel expenses, catering and travel. But the district released few records and said the documents could not be located without extensive, costly searches.

The Free Press did obtain a list of budgeted payments to vendors from Nov. 1, 2005, to Nov. 1, 2006, through the DPS procurement department. It outlined $1.3 million for hotels, catering companies and local restaurants, travel agencies and tour companies. But the list did not detail the nature of all the events, how many officials attended or who spent what.

The total also did not include money spent by district employees who made their own travel arrangements and were later reimbursed. Nor did it include out-of-town restaurant tabs and other incidentals, suggesting the true travel costs were much higher.

In all, hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending remain unexplained.

Among last year's travels, the district sent people to the Hotel del Coronado near San Diego, the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco, the Hilton at Walt Disney World in Florida and the Doral Golf Resort and Spa in Miami.

[Rest of the Story...]