What’s not to like in the Ouachita Mountains in the autumn? The Department of Transportation paid $9,532.68 for some of its employees to stay at the Embassy Suites Hotel & Spa in Hot Springs, Arkansas during October, 2009. Again in November of the same year, the agency paid another $3,349.32 to the same hotel. The total bill was $12,882.00.
We haven’t figured out if it was the year’s longest-running conference, or if the hotel, after billing the agency for $9,500, found another three thousand dollars’ worth of charges it forgot to include in the first bill. (Payments were made to John Q. Hammons Realty, owner of the Hotel & Spa, and are recorded under the Subsistence Lodging category devoted to out-of-state travel.) See this and more at SeeTheSpending.org.
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4 comments:
I work for an "evil" corporation that makes a good profit and they cancelled our normal holiday outing and dinner. Our sales didn't meet company goals. Why can't government be responsible as well? Public officials have a ridiculous sense of entitlement. The waste of money in Madison County is a perfect example of DON'T QUESTION MY ACTIONS! by arrogant politicians.
Southeastern Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (SASHTO) conference maybe?
I searched the site, and I couldn't find the info you reported. What search criteria did you input?
I did find it. I was searching under "out of state travel" instead of subsistence/lodging.
The search results that indicate dates are based on the dates that the vendor was actually paid. It may not be the same as the travel dates.
These could be totally legitimate travel expenses. However, I have not been able to find out the actual dates of travel, the purpose of the travel, nor the number of MS attendees.
I am not defending nor criticizing the MDOT, but it is very common for State DOT's to send their higher ranked people to National and Regional Transportation Conferences. For some states that could mean anywhere between 10-20 employees. I speculate that the number of employees each State DOT sends is probably small compared to the number of employees the State DOT's have on the payroll. In MS, I'm guessing that 10 employees may be 1.5% of the total. 10 employees registration fees and 5 nights of hotel fees (at the conference rate) does add up.
Without more information available, I'm not in full support of your article on this one, KF. Please help!
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