BATA board to adopt travel policy

By MELISSA DOMSIC
mdomsic@record-eagle.com

September 24, 2008 12:00 am

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TRAVERSE CITY -- Board members for the Bay Area Transportation Authority are expected to adopt a travel and employee reimbursement policy at their monthly meeting today.

It's perhaps the public bus system's first such written code.

"I'm not sure we didn't (have a policy)," said Don Scharmen, interim executive director. "I don't know where it would be. I've never seen it. Maybe at some point there was one."

BATA's budget for fiscal year 2009 is $6.3 million. It collects local tax dollars, as well as state and federal funds. Officials are looking at a variety of ways to trim expenses, including reductions in employee travel.

Under proposed new rules, BATA's executive director expenses require approval by the board's governance committee, and all other employee expenses need authorization from the executive director.

In past years, former Executive Director Joe DeKoning signed his own expense reports, until board Chairman Rob Bacigalupi began approving them in August 2006, according to BATA documents obtained by the Record-Eagle under the state Freedom of Information Act.

One of DeKoning's self-approved expense reports in 2003 included a $26 round of golf during a three-night stay at Shanty Creek Resort. The trip's purpose was listed as "MPTA," an acronym for the Michigan Public Transit Association.

Scharmen's expense reports had only his own signature, and George McBath, BATA's assistant director for administration, began submitting reports with manager signatures last year.

Receipts were missing for some expenses, but the new policy requires receipts for reimbursements.

Lack of expense report approvals and documentation were problems brought up in consecutive audit management letters.

Until recently, BATA's board exercised little control over employee expenses.

Board member Wayne Schmidt said he knew DeKoning went to Lansing regularly for the MPTA, but couldn't immediately state what benefit the transportation authority received from the trips.

"I was made aware of several trips when he was active in the organization, but I do not know about every trip or every activity involved in the state organization ... if there were excessive things I was not made aware of those," Schmidt said.

He later said it was important for BATA to fight for government dollars, and it's too expensive to hire lobbyists.

BATA for years had been managed like a small organization in which the executive director had a lot of leeway, but now there's greater board supervision, Bacigalupi said.

"We're fixing those things," he said. "We're putting those policies in place so we can bring the organization up to speed and have the oversight we should have."