Jo County pays airfare for contested D.C. ‘junket’
From our weekly issue dated July 30, 2008
Josephine County Chairman Dave Toler gestures in exasperation during a meeting as he queries Commissioner Jim Raffenburg about ’the truth’ on his promise to pay for a trip earlier this year. (Photo by Michelle Binker, Illinois Valley News)
The Josephine County board of commissioners has declined to take further action to seek reimbursement for the cost of an airline ticket Commissioner Jim Raffenburg used to travel to Washington, D.C. for a National Association of Counties (NACO) conference earlier this year.
Board Chairman Dave Toler stated Friday, July 25, that he’d received a request from the finance department to bring the issue before the board. He contended that the question was whether or not Raffenburg would reimburse the county for the cost of his airline ticket.
During a regular administrative meeting in Grants Pass, Raffenburg countered by asking Rosemary Padgette, chief financial officer, if she brought the issue to the board of her own volition, or if she had been requested to do so. She stated that the chairman requested that she bring the matter to the board.
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Commissioner Dwight Ellis then inserted that the county did not have a travel policy applicable at the time the ticket was purchased.
“I don’t think the county legally has a leg to stand on,” he said. “I would make a motion that the county pay this – I think we’ve already paid it – but not take it any further because I don’t think we need to.”
Raffenburg agreed and seconded the motion.
“It was an expense that under the travel policy rules at the time I could make. (The rules) were changed after the fact,” he said. The cost for the ticket was approximately $630. Raffenburg used the nonrefundable ticket, and paid the remainder of his expenses to attend a NACO legislative convention.
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“Whether I had gone or not gone, the county had spent the money,” he said.
Toler disagreed.
“We do know that legal counsel does not concur with that opinion,” he said. “You need to have board approval before spending $3,000 on a trip representing the board.”
Further, Toler cited instances where Raffenburg had publicly declared that he would pay for the trip.
“I’m just trying to find out what is the truth; are you really paying for the trip,” Toler asked, “or are we going to pay for a good chunk of this trip?”
Raffenburg suggested that Toler was stalling, and called for a vote.
The motion to approve the expenditure with no further action was approved 2-1 with Toler in opposition.
A handful of department managers, who earlier had gathered for a managers’ update meeting, lingered in the conference room or just outside the door to listen to the matter, then departed after it was concluded. Raffenburg asked that it be noted that those county employees had no business remaining just to hear the exchange while they were on the clock.
“They obviously had no other business here at the time,” he said. “County staff is on the public payroll, and for them to stay to watch something they have no interest in is wrong,” he concluded.
