La. officials ask if district chief should pay for misuse of state vehicle for personal trips

La. officials question schools chief use of SUV

BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana’s top education board asked Thursday whether a schools superintendent should be forced to reimburse the state for misusing his state-owned vehicle for dozens of personal trips.

The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted 9-1 to request a decision from the governor’s fiscal office on whether Paul Vallas owes the state mileage payments for using a state-owned Dodge Durango on the trips, including visits to see his family in Chicago.

Several BESE members said Vallas, superintendent of the state-run Recovery School District, should have to pay for those trips.

“We need to calculate the mileage between New Orleans and his home and recover the money,” said BESE member Tammie McDaniel, of Oak Ridge. She added, “If it was any other soul working for the state of Louisiana, it would be expected that they would reimburse the inappropriate charges.”

A legislative audit in November said the trips violated state administrative code, which prohibits personal use of a state vehicle.

Louisiana Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek said Vallas did nothing wrong because Pastorek told Vallas that he could use the sport utility vehicle for nonbusiness travel. Pastorek said he wasn’t aware of the legal prohibition.

Pastorek said if money must be repaid, he’ll pay it back — though whether that repayment would be from the education department’s budget or Pastorek’s own pocket was unclear.

“The mistake is not Mr. Vallas’ mistake. The mistake is my mistake,” Pastorek told the board.

“Then, you pay it,” board member Louella Givens, of New Orleans, shot back.

“I take full responsibility for it, and if there’s dollars associated with it, I’ll take that too,” Pastorek replied.

In an interview after the BESE meeting, Pastorek said he asked the Department of Education’s lawyer to contact the Division of Administration, the governor’s fiscal office which oversees state vehicle purchases and policy, to comply with BESE’s request. It wasn’t clear when a decision might be made.

Vallas runs the Recovery School District, which operates many of the low-performing schools taken over by the state, mostly in New Orleans. He no longer uses the state-owned SUV. Instead, he receives a $2,200 monthly car allowance, according to the education department.

Pastorek said he’ll abide by whatever the Division of Administration decides, but he said the state didn’t lose any money because Vallas drove the state-owned SUV to Chicago. Pastorek said if Vallas hadn’t been driving a state vehicle, he would have been getting the car allowance — which Pastorek noted is more expensive than the state vehicle.

“If he was going to get compensated for this particular benefit, then why should there be a reimbursement at all?” Pastorek said.

The report from Legislative Auditor Steve Theriot’s office said Vallas — who doesn’t fly — used the state-owned SUV for dozens of visits to family in Illinois and along the Gulf Coast from his hiring in July 2007 through April 2009. Thirty-one of 41 trips out of Louisiana weren’t work-related, Vallas told auditors.

The audit said Vallas used public funds for gasoline on personal trips, and the state paid the insurance claim for an accident that Vallas had while driving the SUV in Illinois.

BESE members split on whether they also wanted an ethics investigation into the matter, and several members questioned why the Division of Administration needed to be involved at all, saying BESE could simply require Vallas to pay the mileage costs.

“This is special treatment, and I’m not for that,” said board member Dale Bayard of Lake Charles.