Irregularities Found in Mayor Furey’s and Councilmember Weideman’s Travel Expense Reports
At the March 10, 2015 meeting the Council approved pooling the available Council travel budget for the remainder of this year. At that same time, they also proposed increasing the allotted budget available to each councilmember in subsequent years. Councilmembers Griffiths and Ashcraft opposed the measure. The current non-local travel budget is $1,664 annually per Councilmember and $2,224 annually for the Mayor. The move to pool the budget was precipitated by a trip the Mayor and Councilmember Weideman took in January to attend the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and meet with leadership from the Coast Guard.
The stated reason the item was brought up was because Weideman had gone over his allotted budget of $1,664 for the trip and needed to borrow funds that were unused from his fellow colleagues on the Council to get reimbursed. Weideman even recused himself from deliberating on the matter admitting that he was “nominally affected” by the result and noting that the “public needs to have a perception of trust and integrity in their leaders.”
Expense reports from the trip obtained last Thursday through a Public Records Act request revealed several irregularities. Weideman’s expense report was for $1636.84. The total amount of Mayor Furey’s expense report was $2,416.76. The City travel policy adopted by the Council requires that a pre-trip travel request giving a cost estimate for the trip be approved a month prior to the planned travel date. The policy also requires that a final expense report be completed within 10 working days upon completion of the trip.
Per that policy, Mayor Furey’s expense report was completed on 28 January. Weideman’s expense report, however, was not prepared until 13 March – nearly two months after the travel date and four days after I submitted a public records request seeking the information on 09 March. The reason for the unusual delay in preparing the expense report was not explained.
In another peculiarity, the airfare for both Furey and Weideman was reported on Mayor Furey’s expense report. In the meeting, Mayor Furey indicated that they went really cheap on the airfare as his fare was purchased at regular price and it only cost $99 for Weideman’s additional ticket. That statement, however, does not appear to jive with the expense report.
Mayor Furey’s expense report included airfare charges in the amount of $714.60. That amount is consistent with what U.S. Airways (the airline taken by Furey and Weideman) is currently charging for two round-trip tickets from LA to DC. Strangely, however, there were two airfare receipts. One was for a roundtrip purchase for two in the amount of $653.40 with a returning flight on 23 January. A second receipt showed a one-way return flight purchased for 24 January making it appear the trip was extended by one day. Oddly, that flight was purchased using 50,000 airline reward miles from an unknown source. Only the $61.20 processing fee for using the airline miles, and the initial $653.40 roundtrip airfare, was expensed on the report.
The use of airline reward miles presents several questions. Whose rewards account did they come from? Why not just pay the additional fee to change flights? Does utilizing reward miles in this way constitute a reportable gift under the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) guidelines?
There were also two hotel receipts for Furey and Weideman – one for 19 -22 January and another for the extra day of the trip on 23 January. The Capital Hilton charged them $314.88 a night for the 19th– 22nd and only $159.16 for that final Friday night on the 23rd. The Travel Policy also provides a suggested dinner guideline of $30 and requires any variance to that guideline be documented by a written explanation. Furey and Weideman exceeded that amount slightly on a few occasions and provided receipts but no written explanation for going beyond the guideline.
In opposing the pooling proposition, Griffiths expressed concern that the pooling was unfair as it would penalize those that hadn’t yet used their budget. He also said pooling reduced the incentive for the Council to be cost conscious and rewarded those that traveled first and traveled more extravagantly. As an alternative, he suggested that he would be willing to offer any unused funds in his budget at the conclusion of the fiscal year to anyone that had exceeded their budget.
The Council travel budget has not changed since fiscal year 2011-12, but it was as much as $7,500 per Councilmember and $10,000 for the Mayor in 2008-09. Any Councilmember can exceed the budgeted amount for travel with prior approval from the Council as Mayor Furey did just a few months ago for a trip to China. That trip, which was planned for last November, was approved with a budget of $5,000. Why Mayor Furey and Councilman Weideman didn’t seek Council approval prior to exceeding the budget for their trip to DC, as Mayor Furey did for his trip to China, is something else left unexplained.
The approval to pool the remaining budget will allow the Mayor to attend another U.S. Conference of Mayors event in June without having to seek another travel budget increase from the Council.
I really do think we should pay our council and mayor a salary. Right now the only individuals that can hold these seats are either retired or independently wealthy. If you’re doing everything you should be doing, being a coucilmember is a full time job. Doesn’t make financial sense to make your family suffer financially because of the sole purpose of serving your community. As far as the expenses I agree that they need to follow the rules but at the same time I think our council should have a better allowance especially if it’s directly tied to economic development.
Absolutely. Finally a voice of reason. Thank you, Aurelio. Clint just cant be trusted anymore. All he does is attack certain elected officials while others get appointed after coming in 8th place… but apparently that guy (who sulks around at events in weird clothes because nobody wants to talk to him) is the smart one. The voters didn’t pick Griffiths and they certainly didn’t pick Clint who almost came in dead last.
Why not be unbiased, Clint? It would be a very nice change of scenery. Instead you attack anybody who happens to be a Democrat (not that parties should matter in local elections) and b*** anybody who pretends to be an ultra conservative… or Heidi Ashcraft because you go to the same Mormon church.
We see through you. And its hilarious.
It may not seem like it to you, but I actually do try very hard to remain objective and present factually based information. My primary objective is to provide the information and let people draw their own conclusions. You, on the other hand, appear more than willing to promulgate whatever falsehood you may have heard about my personal life you feel might support your cause.
It’s not false just because it isn’t the same story you tell. This article is particularly bad because your numbers are all wrong. You are a law student who couldn’t pass the bar exam who now thinks he is a forensic accountant. And since you are not involved in any organizations that improve our city, nobody who believes you except your 3 buddies who post all the time.
Another anonymous user to stir the pot again, amazing how there is always a double standard.
So Anonymous you are asking Mr. Paulson to be unbiased but you turn around and personally attack him. I would like to commend Mr. Paulson for what he has done for this city thus far. If the new council was truly transparent as they claim, Mr. Paulson will have nothing to write about. However reading his articles, I’m deeply concerned by what is taking place in this city. So instead of personally attacking him, why don’t you enlighten all of us or explain the discrepancies brought up in this article or any of the previous issues he wrote about. To have a meaningful dialogue you should defend or attack the claim not the person.
I didn’t say I an unbiased. I absolutely think Clint is a hack. I was very open about that. He cries foul when Democrats do anything but sees no problem when a Repubkican does worse. Look at how much Scotto was spending every year and you will see the double standard. He spent waaaaaaay more money that our new Mayor, and none of it was for lobby new business or congress to get grant money. But Clint wouldn’t understand that, since he is barely from Torrance and based on his positions and behavior in the last election, he is a child with ADD.
I’m so glad that they gave the appointed “councilmember” a chance to share his ever relevant opinion.
The mayor did not go to China. That trip was canceled.
Exactly. But Clint doesn’t care about facts. He is the Fox News of Torrance. Just make up s*** and throw it at a wall to see if it sticks.
Thank you for alerting me. I have updated the post based on the information. I want to ensure the information presented is completely accurate and welcome any corrections. The notion that I just make stuff up and don’t care about the facts is completely ridiculous.
So you admit to just throwing info up on your blog before verifying its accuracy. Sounds about right. Just post whatever you want, and pretend to be concerned with accuracy when somebody points out your intentionally false or misleading information.
I made the correction for the sake of accuracy and because I really do care about the facts. Though of course, as I am sure you realize, whether the Mayor actually took the trip to China or not has no bearing whatsoever on the irregularities that I wrote about in the expense reports (which I also provided links to so everyone can review them and determine of their own accord whether my assessment is accurate).
I wasnt the one who brought up China. But the author was right. I am glad you rectified that. But the fact that you are spreading “the sky is falling” narratives about the Mayor is getting old. Scotto spent well in excess of $10k every year. And he DIDN’T go to important conferences and lobbying trips. So where did it go? Nobody asks that question ever. And why did he fight to lower it as soon as he left office. Same guy who saw the agenda in 2005 where the council was going to consider dropping candidate contributions from $200K to $30k – and then he donated $200K before the vote. Sound familiar?