CONTRACTORS SPONSOR COMMISSIONER’S TRIPS
While Mississippi’s top four transportation officials travel often at taxpayer expense, they also are frequently taken away with their wives to popular tourist destinations and put up in luxury hotels with tabs picked up by groups of road builders who receive construction contracts from MDOT.
In exchange for the trips, those transportation officials — MDOT Director Larry L. “Butch” Brown, Southern District Transportation Commissioner Wayne Brown, Central District Commissioner Dick Hall and Northern District Commissioner Bill Minor, and sometimes legislators — usually brief the groups on highway issues of the day. In many cases the only cost to the taxpayers for these trips is the meals for which the officials are reimbursed. This is on the honor system — they are not required to submit receipts.
The itineraries for some of the trips Mississippi highway officials and their wives have been given over the last four years resemble what the average American might consider the vacation of a lifetime.
On the San Francisco trip in spring 2008, which was funded by the Mississippi Road Builders Association, Wayne Brown said he took an offered tour of the California Wine Country. Some of the commissioners and their wives took the optional trips to Alcatraz, tours of the city, and other trips, which were included on the agenda. The officials also stayed at the JW Marriott Hotel just off Union Square, a popular shopping and cultural area, on the Road Builders Association’s tab. The hotel Web site recently advertised a deal on rooms starting at $294 a night for a promotion running through the end of December 2008.
Sun Herald
1/16/9
