Auditor slams Mary Easley's travel costs

RALEIGH -- State Auditor Les Merritt said this morning that trips to France, Russia and Estonia by First Lady Mary Easley and others included "unreasonable and excessive expenses," including a taxpayer-funded $332 lunchtime caviar cocktail.

Taxpayers picked up hundreds of dollars in alcohol purchases, against state policy. They paid for ballet tickets, and an executive assistant to Easley billed the state $227 dollars for a linen jacket.

Merritt found that the trips to France and Russia -- which cost a total of $110,000 -- were of questionable value to taxpayers.

A spokesman for Gov. Mike Easley issued a terse response this morning. "The first lady was asked by Cultural Resources to attend, and while there she did what she was asked to do by the department," said the spokesman, Seth Effron.

He declined to answer questions. "The statement that I've given you is the statement I've given out," Effron said.

The acting head of the Department of Cultural Resources, Staci Meyer, said Easley has been unfairly accused of excess.

"We asked the first lady to go on these trips. She didn't pick the restaurants. She didn't secure the lodging," Meyer said. "To make her appear as though she was doing something she shouldn't have or she wasn't doing state business, there's no basis for that. ... We have really made this embarrasing for her. I feel really bad that she has had to go through this for something we asked her to do."

Meyer said she missed the alcohol charges when approving expense reports because the receipts were written in Russian. The jacket was claimed as a meal.

Those charges have already been refunded. Meyer disagreed with Merritt's findings that other charges, such as ballet tickets, were unreasonable.

"The Department of Cultural Resources funds ballets. That's one of the things we do here," Meyer said. "The auditor saw it as purely entertainment. That's our business here. We are in the business of the arts."

Meyer said that despite her disagreements with Merritt, the department decided to take $45,000 in additional money from the private nonprofit N.C. Museum of Art Foundation to repay costs that Merritt termed "unreasonable." The foundation contributes some 70 percent of the museum's $11 million budget.

Secretary Libba Evans, who was a member of the delegation to France and Estonia, is on unpaid leave while she deals with personal business. Evans was on leave when she went on the trips. Meyer has been running the department.

Mary Easley and an assistant traveled to Paris and Compiegne, France, in May 2007. The trip was designed to celebrate a successful Monet exhibit in Raleigh that had already ended. Easley had no specific duties or obligations on the trip.

One year later, a delegation of state cultural resources officials including Easley traveled to Tallin, Estonia, and St. Petersburg, Russia. In Russia, Easley and the others had one hour of official state business — a meeting with officials from the Hermitage Museum.

"Any direct benefit to the State related to the First lady's presence on the trips to France and Russia is difficult to identify," Merritt said in a statement. "For example in Russia, a simple one hour meeting with museum officials does not justify the taxpayers paying for a day-long tour of St. Petersburg plus a trip to the ballet."

Merritt reviewed the trips after reports in The News & Observer detailed expenses. Merritt received hotline tips that the trips were wasteful.

"What is the culture that would let such items be charged to the state? It just shouldn't be, and that's what we want to see changed," Merritt said today.