Okla. Agency`s Travel Spending Draws Scrutiny

Dec. 04--Oklahoma City officials who serve as Emergency Medical Services Authority trustees say EMSA travel and meeting expenses of more than $405,000 since July 2008, including first-class air travel, $500-per-night hotel rooms and a $2,800 retirement party, show its spending deserves more scrutiny and oversight.

But EMSA President and CEO Steve Williamson defended the spending as necessary to secure Medicare payments and said it is a cost of doing business in an industry that involves complicated billing procedures, a need for high-tech dispatch and medical systems and building relationships with peers across the country.

An analysis by The Oklahoman and the Tulsa World shows EMSA spends more than $100,000 yearly on travel, meetings, meals and related expenses, including nearly $154,000 in the past 3 1/2 years on travel related to an industry lobbying organization based in Washington.

EMSA is the ambulance service for Oklahoma City, Tulsa and several suburbs of both cities. It's subsidized by the TotalCare utility fee that provides participating residents with free ambulance service.

Lobby group travel

Williamson is in the middle of a two-year term as president of the American Ambulance Association, which lobbies Congress on behalf of member ambulance services. More than a third of EMSA travel and meeting expenses since July 2008 have gone to pay for his association-related travel, according to EMSA's records.

Williamson said his position at the ambulance association has been crucial in securing an annual renewal of a federal law regarding Medicare payments to ambulance services. In 2008, Congress deemed a 2003 law establishing Medicare fee schedules was inadequate, and passed a one-year law that gives urban services higher payments by 2 percent and rural services 3 percent.

That extra percentage equates to about $400,000 annually for EMSA, records show, and Williamson said that justifies the travel expenses to lobby Congress to renew the law.

EMSA's annual travel spending also represents less than one percent of its yearly budget.

Tristan North, the ambulance association's senior vice president for government affairs, supported Williamson's contention that Williamson played a key role in securing the extra percentage. He said Williamson's experience over more than three decades and his position as an executive for a public entity during today's budget climate were indispensable.

"He's definitely uniquely qualified and has been very helpful in our efforts," North said.

Ward 1 Oklahoma City Councilman Gary Marrs, also an EMSA trustee, said he has no qualms with EMSA's involvement in the ambulance association. He noted city Fire Chief Keith Bryant has a leadership role in a similar organization for fire departments, and the city pays for associated travel.

But some of the individual expenses for those trips caught Marrs' attention and shows the need for more oversight by the board, he said.

First-class tickets

Williamson travels on American Airlines in first class for those trips and other trips he takes for EMSA, and EMSA pays for it, the records show. AAA has paid his hotel bills since he became president, but EMSA picked up the tab for ambulance association-selected hotels before that, including a $515 per night stay in February 2010 at a Fairmont hotel in Washington.

Williamson said he travels first-class because of health problems. He provided The Oklahoman with a note from his doctor, dated Feb. 1, 1984, stating that various chronic health issues mean he must travel first-class, and Williamson said the board approved the reasoning.

Williamson said he has not been asked to show evidence since then that he still needs to travel first-class. Travel and meeting expenses are included as one line item in EMSA's trustee meetings, and detailed expense reports are available for the board's review.

"They (trustees) know that since then (1984) I've had more surgeries, I had my knees replaced and I was in the hospital in June of this year for a blood clot deal," Williamson said.

Ward 2 Oklahoma City Councilman Ed Shadid, who is also an EMSA trustee, scoffed at Williamson's explanation.

"Board approval for first-class tickets based on a doctor's note and a board vote that's 27 years old? Really?" Shadid asked.

Among other notable expenses shown in the records is a $100 car wash at Fine Airport Parking in Tulsa during a trip Williamson took in February. A receipt says the wash was for Williamson's Lexus, but Williamson said the charge was actually for an EMSA-owned vehicle he drove.

EMSA also paid for a $60 "welcome basket" for ambulance association executive Maria Bianchi when she came to Oklahoma City to speak at an event.

A handwritten note regarding that expense states: "Steve had me call the Skirvin and order flowers, choc strawberries and a slip of Champagne for Maria."

Policy violations?

Some of the expenses appear to lack documentation required by EMSA's travel policy. For meals and other entertainment of non-EMSA employees, the policy requires "business purpose for entertainment including any area of business discussion before, during or after entertainment" to be listed, along with names of participants and their organizations.

Williamson said noting the names of who ate the meals and the organization is sufficient.

Meals shown in the EMSA records that included non-EMSA employees sometimes include only the number of the outside employees and whom they work for, and the records typically don't show what was discussed. Records related to a $2,800 retirement party in July 2010 for former EMSA Vice President Ann Singer also don't include that documentation, though Williamson said ambulance executives from across the country attended the event.

EMSA Chief Financial Officer Kent Torrence paid for two meals, each more than $600, on a trip in 2009 to Denver and Charlotte, N.C., that included employees of companies that provided training for EMSA's dispatch system, EMSA records show.

EMSA also paid for a $468 meal at Morton's Steakhouse in Vienna, Va., last year for Williamson and other ambulance association executives.

Williamson defended the spending on the meals as professional courtesy, and that the meal at Morton's was because it was his turn to buy.

"Do I think it's OK occasionally? I think I've done it three times in four years," Williamson said. "I don't think it's out of line that at some point I pay for one."

Williamson stressed that the relationships formed on such trips are important.

"A lot of business is done on relationships, and I'm able to develop those relationships that help us locally," Williamson said.

Spending comparison

EMSA spending on travel and related expenses on a per-employee basis far exceeds what Tulsa spends. Records show Tulsa spent about $287,000 on travel last fiscal year, while EMSA spent about $132,000. Oklahoma City recently lifted a two-year travel ban imposed because of the recession.

Tulsa has about 3,500 employees, and EMSA has 46. EMSA paramedics work for a contractor.

Oklahoma City's Fire Department, by comparison, spent about $41,000 on travel in fiscal year 2009, the most recent full fiscal year before the travel ban was implemented, records show.

Oklahoma City employees also are held to the federal standard for daily meals and incidental expenses, which is $71 in Washington, according to city and federal records. Williamson often spends much more per day on his trips, highlighted by room service charges for individual meals of more than $71.

Williamson said the room service meals allow him to get work done instead of venturing out and eating on his own time.

But Shadid and Marrs said the various expenses show that EMSA trustees need to use the forum of board meetings to address the spending and subject it to more oversight.

Marrs said Singer's retirement party is an example of an unnecessary expense, though Williamson said the well-regarded Singer deserved the party for more than 24 years of crucial work.

"We have retirements all the time in the city, and the city doesn't pay for the party," Marrs said.

Shadid said he plans to bring the expenses up at the EMSA Trust's next board meeting this month. He and other officials from Tulsa and Oklahoma City have expressed concern in recent months after investigations by the newspapers showed spending on items such as $3,000 gas cookout grills and inter-divisional EMSA loans.

"(The spending is) very excessive," Shadid said. "And if it's not even for EMSA-related activity, it's all the more unacceptable."

Copyright 2011 - The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City