Wake residents seethe over travel spree

Outrage abounds, from taxpayers to commissioners

RALEIGH -- Joan Swiger got steamed Tuesday when she read about a fired Wake County employee who took at least 50 trips on a government credit card, including a whale-watching cruise off the Maine coast and four visits to Disney World.

"It made me so mad I've been furious all day long," said Swiger, 85, a Raleigh widow who used to work as a furniture store bookkeeper and WakeMed personnel manager. "I've contended for years these people are as crooked as a dog's hind legs. If I were running that department, they'd all be fired."

Swiger was among the dozens of residents who called and sent e-mail messages to The News & Observer on Tuesday after an article about Craig P. Wittig, the former recycling program manager for the solid waste management division. Readers also posted comments on newsobserver.com.

Five employees Wittig supervised went on some outings, which included nights at a Las Vegas casino hotel and a visit to Yellowstone National Park. Collectively, the government workers charged $161,233 in travel costs and other expenses to credit cards issued by Wake County and paid for with public money.

Wittig, 37, was hired in February 2006 to develop a conservation education program for Wake County. He said his travels were legitimate business trips. His county job duties included directing the anti-littering campaign and planning a proposed environmental education center at the recently closed North Wake Landfill.

Grace Kirkland, a 30-year resident of Fuquay-Varina, attempted to call County Manager David Cooke to complain about the spending only to find his voice mail box was full.

"I wanted to give him a piece of my mind," said Kirkland, who planned to keep calling Cooke until she got through. "People are doggone fed up with this stuff. I hope when we go to vote it reflects it."

Cooke said he had emptied his voice mail, which holds about 30 messages, three times Tuesday, but it kept filling up. Most callers urged him to conduct a wider audit of employee purchases and questioned his decision to keep solid waste administrator James Reynolds, Wittig's direct supervisor, on the county payroll.

County records show Reynolds, who has since been demoted as director of the county's solid waste division, personally approved the trips and spending, including purchases of top-of-the-line backpacking gear, a John Denver CD and a novel about elves.

On Monday, county officials reported Reynolds' salary in his new position as $94,973. On Tuesday, officials said his salary was reduced to $85,000.

Closed session planned

Joe Bryan, chairman of the Wake commissioners, said he had also received several calls from outraged taxpayers.

Public disclosure of the spending comes at a sensitive time for the board of commissioners, which voted 4-3 on June 16 to impose a 2.5-cent property tax rate increase while placing new restrictions on how the school board can spend money.

Bryan said he and others on the county board would likely ask for a closed session with Cooke at their next scheduled meeting to learn more about the questionable spending.

"It's totally unacceptable," Bryan said of Wittig's charges. "We'll ask hard questions of the manager to make sure this never happens again. Misuse of county funds will not be tolerated."

The county manager has said he is limited in how much he can say publicly about the situation, citing personnel privacy concerns. Cooke has moved to tighten restrictions on the 535 employees who have the county purchasing cards, the spending on which totalled $6 million last year.

Commissioners Lindy Brown and Tony Gurley each expressed disbelief Tuesday that the spending and trips could have gone undetected for so long.

"I knew Craig," Brown said. "He was a decent, dedicated employee. I was shocked. Going to Disney World four different times? I'm not going to make excuses for that."

Gurley said he bristled when he read Wittig's comments making the distinction that the money spent for the trips came from tipping fees at the county landfills, not taxpayer money.

"It doesn't matter whether it's fees or property tax revenue," Gurley said. "That's not a valid distinction. It was taxpayer money that was wasted. I can't imagine how we did not catch the charges to Disney. That should have been a red flag. It's beyond my comprehension how someone could have spent taxpayer money like that."

Carol Parker, a former Wake school board member, recalled the criticism leveled at her and her colleagues by county commissioners in 2005 when at least $2 million intended for school bus parts went instead to employees who bought such items as widescreen TVs, laptop computers and furniture.

"It has just seemed to me over the years people have given them a pass," Parker said of the commissioners.

The president of the conservative Wake County Taxpayers Association faxed a two-page letter to the county manager.

"I am totally disgusted at the report and the attitude expressed by the employee who has thus 'stolen' from the taxpayers of Wake County," wrote J. Russell Capps, a former state legislator from Raleigh.