SCHOOLS SQUANDER MILL ONS
De Blasio’s Education Dept. botched oversight on more than $20M in travel expenses, shocking audit finds
A scathing audit of out-ofcontrol travel expenses at the Department of Education has a message for school officials: Just do the math.
According to Controller Scott Stringer, the city school system botched more than $20 million in runaway travel expenses, including unnecessary payouts to lavish hotels for meetings that could have easily been held on school sites.
Stringer’s bombshell tally of 2017 travel vouchers filed by Education Department employees found sloppy staffers failed to follow regulations for 93% of travel expenses, potentially costing taxpayers millions in bogus spending.
Among the problems Stringer found in his deep dive into a representative sample of roughly $1 million in travel expenses that occurred under the watch of Mayor de Blasio:
$14,023 in blatant overpayments, including $11,913 to the glitzy New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge.
$233,167 for meetings in hotels and other venues with no effort, as required by the rules, to find free or low-cost space in city school buildings — including $12,883 for a staff retreat at the posh Tarrytown House Estate on the Hudson.
$269,684 in purchases that lacked required written bids including a $17,847 catering bill.
$14,956 in credit card charges with no supporting documentation, including $2,821 in charges at the lavish Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville.
Stringer said the city’s $32 billion public school system must institute tighter controls on travel expenses for Education Department staffers.
“When it comes to our schools, every single dollar counts. We can’t afford to waste dollars that should go to our kids and classrooms,” Stringer said.
“The Department of Education’s failure to follow its own policy and keep close track of spending shows a disregard for taxpayers and ends up costing our students,” he added.
Stringer’s probe also found that former Chancellor Carmen Fariña cost taxpayers nearly $61,000 in one fell swoop when she canceled a prepaid trip to Cuba for 16 students and six staff members.
After Fariña called off the jaunt, the city lost the $60,422 prepayment — and then school officials authorized an additional $97,000 for a replacement trip to Brazil for most of the same group.
Fariña couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday, but an Education Department spokesman said the decision to cancel the Cuba trip was made due to political unrest in the island nation.
Education Department officials — like officials from other city agencies — are expected to comply with a set of requirements for travel expenses designed to prevent waste and fraud.
The rules require prior authorization for travel expenses and mandate the use of receipts or other evidence to show the appropriate spending took place.
They also require Education officials to look for venues for meetings and events within the city’s massive, 1,800-school system before splurging on outside space.
But nine times out of 10, Stringer’s audit found, school officials ignored those directives.
School officials flouted the city’s own approval process for $269,684 worth of payments in the $1 million sample Stringer studied.
And they disregarded the mandate to seek free meeting space for events that cost taxpayers $233,167 paid to outside venues.
City school officials also overpaid two travel invoices by $14,023, including nearly $12,000 extra to the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge.
When Stringer contacted the Education Department about the overages, school officials began a process to recover the excess payments.
Teachers and advocates said the wasteful spending was shameful in a public school system where educators routinely resort to online fundraisers for basic classroom supplies such as books, chairs and tables.
There are currently 4,871 active fund-raisers for city schools on the website DonorsChoose — and the $980,000 in improperly documented travel spending uncovered by Stringer could fund dozens of them.
“Teachers have to beg for money, and these educrats are staying at the Marriott. Shame on them,” said Francis Lewis High School teacher and union rep Arthur Goldstein.
“They don’t have any money to reduce class sizes but they have money to overpay hotels,” added Goldstein, who said he teaches 34 students stuffed into a half-size room. “Where are their priorities?”
City Education Department officials agreed with most of the findings of Stringer’s audit and school officials are instituting stricter controls on travel spending, including a new computerized system to track travel receipts.
Education Department spokesman Doug Cohen said that trips and conferences benefit students and staff — and the city is moving to reduce costs.
“We have put strict protocols in place so that any field trips and travel expenses serve our kids and are at the lowest cost to taxpayers,” Cohen said.
“We’ve strengthened our expense reporting procedures, increased training for staff, and are implementing or reinforcing the recommendations in the controller’s report in addition to reviewing more steps we can take to further strengthen our system,” he added.