HOUSTON—When you have 50 million passengers a year pass through Houston’s airports, you would think the public employees that run the place have enough to do. So why are they spending thousands of hours of work time, away from their regular city jobs, working on airport projects across the globe?
In Amsterdam, Antigua, Barbuda, Beijing, Chicago, Chihuahua, Culiacan, Dublin, Dailan, Istanbul, Liberia (Costa Rica), Managua, Medellin, Quito, West Palm Beach and Zacatecas. Just to name a few.
Turns out, the Houston City Council gave the green light for the idea for all of this in 2001. That is, by marketing the city’s aviation brainpower to the world, it would generate money, commerce and more air traffic back home.
But the 11 News Defenders have discovered some real turbulence along the way.
"It is bothersome," said Annise Parker, former city councilmember and current city controller.
"There appears to be a lack of oversight, a lack of consistency and a lack of clear mission and goals for this relationship," Parker said.
The relationship she’s talking about is between the Houston Airport System (HAS) and the Houston Airport System Development Corporation (HASDC). It is a non-profit, private corporation the city created to manage all of those projects in far-flung places, and to manage what city employees to use for them, and when.
But that’s where 11 News discovered a problem and showed it to Parker.
"There really are no consistent and coherent documents on how who went where on whose dime," Parker said.
Each time an airport employee does work on behalf of HASDC, HASDC is supposed to reimburse HAS 1.8 times the cost of that employee’s hours.
But we found cases where that never happened. For example, for employee Robert White’s four-day trip to Amsterdam in April 2008, $3,106 was not reimbursed to the Houston Airport System.
When Sandra Gonzalez and Chief Operating Officer Tom Bartlett went to Chicago in February 2008, $5,203 was not reimbursed. Even a trip by Richard Vacar, former HAS Airport Director, was not reimbursed. He went to Quito for a meeting on how to run their airport in May 2008. HAS should have gotten $3,953 back, but never did.
All told, 11 News identified $20,358 in which the Houston Airport System was shortchanged.
In the summer of 2009, Houston Mayor Bill White hired an outside law firm to review HASDC’s capital structure and cash flows. That review did not uncover the non-reimbursed hours 11 News exposed.
"This issue is going to be turned over to the audit division of the Controller’s Office for an investigation," Parker said.
The Houston Airport System’s response?
"You can come audit me any day," said HAS Interim Director Eric Potts.
Potts took over shortly after Richard Vacar abruptly resigned in May, amid tensions with Mayor Bill White.
"What we’re doing is, we’re going back through the entire billing process," Potts said.
He said his staff is invoicing HASDC for instances they find in which HAS was shortchanged.
11 News: "You’re going to get your money back?"
Potts: "Yes sir."
The interim director also is reviewing a recent policy in which the city doesn’t get reimbursed for "business development" trips, or what amounts to sales calls, to try and sign clients on.
When Deputy Airport Manager Robert White left his Houston duties in April to try and woo the McAllen City Council for an airport project there, the Houston Airport System wasn’t paid for that time. The same held true for Electrical Superintendent Bobby Brown on a two-day qualification interview to Grand Rapids in June. Once again, airport employee work hours were not reimbursed.
"That’s a policy that I think is questionable," said Mayor Bill White.
Mayor White said when it comes to airport resources, the bottom line is the bottom line.
"The policies of HAS should be to bill every hour, that’s expended on HAS-D activity. Period. End of story."
HASDC’s president Gary Lantner declined our request for an on-camera interview, as well as our written requests for information. All of the airport employees mentioned in this story declined to comment except for former director Rick Vacar. Vacar claimed he did submit the proper paperwork but said a clerical error was to blame for no reimbursement to the city.
City auditors continue their investigation.
