RALEIGH - A Wake County administrator has been fired and his supervisor demoted after an internal review of questionable travel expenses that included a whale-watching cruise off the Maine coast and four visits to Disney World.

Craig P. Wittig, recycling program manager for the solid waste management division, took at least 50 trips between his hiring in February 2006 and when his employment ended June 3, sometimes accompanied by his wife and two young children.

Five employees Wittig supervised also went on some outings, which included nights at a Las Vegas casino hotel and a visit to Yellowstone's Old Faithful geyser.

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. County officials would not say whether any of the expenses were merited, calling the issue a personnel matter.

"This just pains me and makes me mad," said County Manager David Cooke. "I can't defend anything they did. I'm not going to try to defend the trips. I'm not going to defend the purchases. To me, it was blatantly inappropriate."

Wittig, 37, was paid $61,190 a year to build what Cooke once called a world-class environmental education program. Wittig said Monday night that the trips and purchases were legitimate. No taxpayer money was involved, he said, because solid waste operations are paid for with fees collected from county landfills.

"There was a business purpose for everything I did," Wittig said.

His boss, Solid Waste Management Director James S. Reynolds, approved the trips and purchases, which included top-of-the line backpacking gear, a John Denver CD and a novel about elves.

County records show Reynolds, who has since been demoted as director of the county’s solid waste division, personally signed off on 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.

Cooke said he was limited in how much he could say about a personnel issue. No criminal charges have been filed, though the county manager said that was still under consideration. County commissioners were informed of the continuing investigation Friday.

Traveling en masse

Records show Wittig worked at Bowling Green State University in Ohio when he was hired by Wake County. His county job duties included developing strategies to encourage schoolchildren to recycle and directing the anti-littering campaign Keep Wake County Beautiful. Wittig was also assigned to plan a proposed environmental education center at the recently closed North Wake Landfill.

In county documents, Wittig often cited the reasons for his extensive travel as attending conferences and visiting environmental education facilities to learn about programs that could be launched back home. To assist him, Wittig was often joined on the trips by three program coordinators and two executive assistants working for him.

Members of an "advisory committee" composed of Wake public school teachers also went on some trips.

Exactly how much the trips cost is difficult to calculate because they were paid for using purchasing cards issued by Wake County to its employees. One employee might charge the airfare for the group to one card, while another might charge hotel rooms or a rented van.

An example is a week-long trip to Maine last summer attended by 17 people.

Records show Wittig was accompanied by four county employees. A dozen Wake teachers also attended, their expenses paid with county money.

An itinerary shows the group visited a fish hatchery, shopped at an L.L. Bean outlet, went hiking and tidal pool wading in Acadia National Park and took a whale watching cruise in the four-masted schooner Margaret Todd. Credit card statements show the employees charged such items as an instructional DVD on how to catch lobsters.

"We looked at environmental issues in that coastal ecosystem," Wittig said. "What we were trying to do is have a comprehensive environmental education program."

Disney World trips

Records show Wittig and others traveled to the Walt Disney World Resort in December 2006 and then again in January 2007, with a side trip to Cape Canaveral. He returned to Disney World in February 2007 and again in February 2008.

County credit card receipts show several charges for multi-day theme park passes costing $303 each. Invoices for hotel rooms at the resort indicate Wittig and other employees were accompanied by their families.

Wittig said having his wife and children along added no expense to the county.

He also used his purchasing card to buy several pricey parkas, a handheld GPS navigation device, Gerber knives, backpacks and other items. There were also charges for bags of Dove chocolates, snack food and sundries.

Wittig said the GPS device was necessary to find his way back to the same spot for consistent sampling of stream water. The county has not recovered the gadget and Wittig said he doesn't know where it is.

Wittig charged the county for CDs by Bon Jovi, the Eagles and Simon and Garfunkel. He bought the John Denver CD shortly before a trip to Colorado.

He said Monday the music was to go on a digital music player purchased to provide a soundtrack for education tours, but that those tours never happened.

In March 2007 Wittig's card was used to rent a van from a company in Bowling Green for nine days, at a cost to Wake taxpayers of more than $700, records show. Wittig paid for at least four rooms at the Residence Inn in Cary and for meals that included $187 for lunch for 16 at Yancey's restaurant in Raleigh.

The only explanation for the rental van and local hotel charges was a handwritten note reading "composting volunteers for pilot education project" scrawled on a receipt.

Wittig said the charges, as well as a trip to Bowling Green he made earlier, was for students recruited from his former college to come to Raleigh for a "composting carnival" attended by 400 Wake schoolchildren. He said the expense of transporting volunteers from Ohio was a bargain compared to what it would have cost in staff time to find qualified local helpers.

Following the leader

Cooke said the purchases were questioned only after the county's new environmental services director, Tommy C. Esqueda, learned of some of the charges and asked the county's finance department to investigate. Though the county's internal auditor was assigned to review monthly credit card statements from at least a half dozen employees, officials said no written report was prepared.

Cooke said those working for Wittig were not punished because they were following his direction and example.

(News researcher Brooke Cain and Lamara Williams contributed to this story.)

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