Exclusive: State probing CUNY chauffeurs
Taxpayers foot bill for CUNY big’s drivers
A City University of New York prexy took taxpayers for a ride with his employment of two chauffeurs.
Jeremy Travis, the former president of John Jay College who insiders say is vying for the coveted job of CUNY chancellor, had two retired NYPD cops at his beck and call as chauffeurs, driving him to work every day as they furnished him with his favorite Starbucks coffee and the day’s newspapers for the trip, sources told The Post.
They dropped off his wife, Susan Herman, at her job at NYPD headquarters, where she is a deputy commissioner, and stopped there at night to wait for her on the way home to the couple’s Brooklyn apartment.
Travis would also ask his drivers to ferry his friends to and from the airport and even had one transport his daughter’s bicycle to her college in upstate Saratoga, a source told The Post.
State authorities are now investigating whether the public college’s employment of these drivers, and as well as the duties they performed, may have run afoul of the law, the sources said.
“We’re not going to comment about an ongoing investigation,” said a spokesman for state Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott.
Travis left John Jay, which is part of taxpayer-funded CUNY, in August after 13 years to join a nonprofit foundation. He has thrown his hat in the ring to be the next CUNY chancellor after James Milliken retires in June, a source said.
Travis, 69, who is close to Mayor de Blasio and former Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, had stints at the NYPD in the 1980s and 1990s as a special counsel and deputy commissioner for legal matters. Shortly after taking the helm of John Jay, which specializes in criminal justice and educating future and current cops, he professed his deep affection for the NYPD.
He soon brought two former cops on board as drivers: Gary Schoellig, 58, in 2005, and James Peterson, 65, a retired detective sergeant, in 2006. Both men were collecting NYPD pensions. State civil-service law forbids them from earning more than $30,000 a year in taxpayer money at a state job without a special state waiver. Neither got a waiver, according to sources, and John Jay paid them most years just below the $30,000 threshold. But the public money wasn’t the only pay they received for the job.
The CUNY Research Foundation, an affiliated nonprofit that funnels federal and state research money to the system’s colleges, kicked in another $35,000 to $40,000 a year to each man, the sources said.
The two chauffeurs were given different titles in CUNY payroll records. Peterson’s title was an adjunct/continuing-education teacher, although he never taught a class. Schoellig was listed in state records as a mail/ messenger-service worker.
A John Jay administrator would submit time sheets to the Research Foundation that were often doctored to inflate the drivers’ hours and bring them up to their full pay of about $70,000, according to a John Jay staffer familiar with college operations.
Falsifying records could be considered a crime, said the John Jay source, who formerly worked in law enforcement.
John Jay spokeswoman Rama Sudhakar said, “The college is not aware of allegations that time sheets were falsified.”
Both drivers left CUNY in May. Schoellig declined to comment. Peterson did not return a message seeking comment. Peterson’s Facebook page has photos of him behind the wheel and one of Travis and his wife outside an airport. “I can’t talk to you,” Travis said before hanging up on The Post. A friend speaking for Travis said his hiring of the drivers was approved by CUNY’s HR department, but could not name anyone who signed off on it.
She said people picked up at an airport by the drivers were guests of the college. She admitted a driver took Travis’ daughter’s bicycle upstate, but described the journey as an “act of friendship” done in the driver’s personal car on his own time.
She said Travis was not interested in the chancellor’s job.
Like other CUNY presidents, Travis, whose salary was $236,185 and who got a $60,000 “household allowance,” was allowed to use his college-issued car to commute. When asked about drivers picking up his wife at work, Sudhakar said policy at the time allowed for “incidental use for personal purposes.” But state rules don’t recognize transporting relatives in official cars as permitted personal use.
CUNY adopted new rules in June that explicitly forbid the transport of friends or family in a university car and mandated that “driving another university employee cannot be the sole or primary duty of any university employee.”
The state IG’s Office has been probing CUNY schools and their relationship with affiliated nonprofits after former City College President Lisa Coico was accused of improperly using foundation funds. Coico stepped down in October 2016 amid a federal probe of the alleged financial misconduct, which she has denied.
An interim IG report released last year found a lack of “sufficient controls” among CUNY colleges using nonprofit money.
“CUNY’s affiliated foundations are entrusted with approximately $1 billion and must ensure those funds are expended for the benefit of the school’s educational mission and its students,” Leahy Scott said at the time.