LITTLE ROCK — The executive director of Little Rock’s airport, whose spending practices have come under scrutiny in the past, flew on a first-class ticket to an annual aviation conference in Hawaii last month.
The ticket for Ron Mathieu, which cost $3,123.60, was permitted under a Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission travel policy, which allows first-class tickets for journeys exceeding four hours in the air.
But city of Little Rock travel policies require employees to fly coach, or economy fares.
Little Rock City Attorney Tom Carpenter said Thursday that the airport commission is “subject to all fiscal procedures of the city” under ordinances governing the agency.
The commission’s travel policy falls under the definition of “fiscal procedures,” Carpenter said, which would make Mathieu’s travel arrangements a violation of city policy.
But Carolyn Witherspoon, the commission’s attorney, disagreed with Carpenter’s interpretation, noting that another section of state law,Arkansas Code Annotated 14-359-115, grants “commissioners powers that are given to city councils of any city. Thus, as you can see, adopting personnel policies, including travel reimbursement policies, is allowed by state law.”
The city’s travel policy also limits reimbursements for rental cars to the “actual costs of mid-sized or smaller vehicles rented from recognized car rental agencies.”
Mathieu, executive director at the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field, rented a Ford Explorer, a seven passenger sport utility vehicle, at a cost of $613.94 for the period Jan. 3-10.
In addition to the Delta Air Lines ticket and the vehicle rental, trip expenses included $2,532.60 for seven nights at the hotel hosting the conference, the Fairmont Kea Lani on Maui. Also, according to a receipt and notation in the expense records Mathieu submitted to the airport finance committee, he sought $42.79 to replace his “broken cell phone holster for company cell phone.”
Mathieu followed all airport commission travel policies and procedures, airport spokesman Shane Carter said in an e-mail.
Travel outside the continental United States must be approved in advance, he said.
“Mr. Mathieu not only obtained prior approval but discussed the trip beforehand and afterward in multiple Commission meetings. Upon returning, he also presented an extensive report to the Commission on what he learned as well as had all expenses approved within a public setting,” Carter said.
The airline ticket was purchased more than four months before the conference, he said, “to achieve the lowest price within the upgraded level of service allowed by commission policy.”
Standard commission policy limits air travel by any employee to economy coach, but the commission revised the policy in 2010 “to include an upgrade for any employee traveling more than four consecutive hours in order for the employee to be more comfortable on a longer flight,” Carter said.
Mathieu attended the conference with his wife, Jasmine, but “no expense was paid by the airport in association with her travel,” the airport spokesman said.
Mathieu also “personally paid for all meals during the trip with exception to any meal that was included as a conference activity,” Carter said, a practice that Mathieu has adopted for the past two years when traveling on airport business.
A staff member made arrangements for the rental vehicle, Carter said. At the time, the Explorer was the only vehicle available, he said.
The hotel, which is 17 miles from the airport, provides no shuttle service. A cab ride to the hotel from the airport is about $60, according to the hotel website.
Arkansas Code Annotated 14-359-109(b) says in part that “it is the intention of this chapter to vest in the commissioners unlimited authority to operate, manage, maintain, improve, and extend the municipally owned airport and its related properties and facilities, and to have full and complete charge of it.”
State law provides that the mayor appoint the commission’s seven members to five year terms. The Little Rock Board of Directors must confirm the appointments with a three-fourths majority vote.
Carpenter said state law granting the commission “unlimited authority” doesn’t preclude the airport commission from following the city’s “fiscal procedures.”
State law allowing larger cities to create commissions to operate their airports gives the commissions wide latitude, but Carpenter said it isn’t wide enough to ignore city travel policies.
“Until someone says our ordinance is unconstitutional, it is presumed legal,” he said. “It’s just basic law.
“The question becomes should they follow that policy. That’s an issue between the [city] board and the commission.”
Witherspoon said she and Carpenter exchanged e-mails over a similar issue when she represented the Little Rock Sanitary Sewer Commission. In those e-mails, she specifically asked what “fiscal procedures” mentioned in city ordinances meant.
“They are generally the things that are found in Chapter 2 of the Code of Ordinances; plus the rules on bids and bidding; plus, the code of ethics (to the extent it hits pecuniary interests); plus, whatever we have to follow from state purchasing laws (which is not a whole lot),” Carpenter responded in a Nov. 3, 2011, e-mail to Witherspoon.
“Is a personnel policy considered a fiscal procedure?” Witherspoon said Thursday. “The answer is no, based on a prior city attorney’s opinion provided to me in 2011 for an unrelated client.”
Carpenter noted that he said“generally” in the previous email.
“It never occurred to me that any entity would think traveling first-class on public funds would be proper.”
Mathieu was reimbursed about $7,000 for the expenses he incurred for the trip to the 27th annual Aviation Issues Conference, which is held in Hawaii every January.
Mathieu has attended the conference since 2008, Carter said.
Sponsored primarily by the American Association of Airport Executives, the meeting is billed as the “preeminent gathering of aviation professionals for nearly three decades, bringing together top-level officials from government and all segments of the aviation industry for in-depth discussions of key issues and charting the course for the Washington agenda in the year ahead.”
Other sponsors include big airlines and other aviation-related organizations, such as the National Association of Air Traffic Controllers. About 400 people attended the conference, Carter said.
Mathieu’s expenses raised no “red flags” among members of the airport commission’s finance committee, which reviewed the expenses at a meeting earlier this month, according to committee chairman Jesse Mason.
The finance committee has been reviewing Mathieu’s expenses monthly since 2010 after the Arkansas Times website reported that the airport staff paid $40,000 to Little Rock Christian Academy for a football-field advertisement promoting the airport’s website. Mathieu’s son attends the private west Little Rock school.
That disclosure prompted wider scrutiny of Mathieu’s expenses. A review led to Mathieu reimbursing the airport $1,219.38.
The commission has encouraged Mathieu to be on top of trends in the industry by participating in such conferences and serving on American Association of Airport Executives committees, Mason said.
“He’s doing exactly what we want him to do,” Mason said.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/22/2013