Was that trip necessary?
The City of Miami's Chief Financial Officer Larry Spring and his staff took a nice little all expense paid trip to Seattle, WA on the City's money (over 10 people went). They went to party at the Government Finance Officer's Association, from June 28 to July 1. According to the brochure, if you register early, you can save. Hope Larry did that, we need to save all we can in Miami these days.According to the promotion: "In today's challenging economic environment more than ever, state and local governments are turning to the public finance professional for practical advice and strategic vision. Finance officers need to understand and be able to explain the economic situation and the potential fallout for their jurisdictions.To do so, public finance professionals must stay informed of the latest developments and trends and continually enhance their skills."
This is what the trip cost:
10 round trip tickets from Miami to Seattle = $ 5,000.00
10 Hotel Rooms for 6 nights = $12,000.00
60 Days of Per Diem = $ 9,000.00
10 Fees for Conference = $10,000.00
10 Miscellaneous = $ 4,000.00
The Pair of Balls on Larry = Priceless!
They even had a party at the Seattle Mariner's Safeco Field. Meanwhile the City of Miami is trying to save the taxpayers from tax increases. When your property taxes go up, you can thank Larry.
Larry also took a recent trip to Europe with his sponsor, Mary Conway, you don't want to know what that cost.
As of now, we have not received any response from Mr. Spring's office. We did contact them.
Photo courtesy City of Miami
Larry also took a recent trip to Europe with his sponsor, Mary Conway, you don't want to know what that cost.
As of now, we have not received any response from Mr. Spring's office. We did contact them.
Photo courtesy City of Miami
posted by Tom Falco at 10:00 AM
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24 Comments:
Let me start by saying I am bothered by wasteful spending as much as anyone. Spending on professional education for employees is not necessarily a bad thing, though. I hope this attack is unfair and the money spent on this trip will come back to benefit Miami tenfold.
I teach continuing education courses for lawyers on insurance law, and go to a three-day seminar sponsored by the ABA almost every year, even when money is tight, because it is the best way for me to learn from the people who are on the cutting edge of my specialty nationally. I consider it money invested in my business and in the professional skills I can offer my clients.
I hope our City's finance professionals learned a lot while they were in Seattle. If they did, they will bring back knowledge to help them come up with creative ways to save money for the City and to get various kinds of federal, state, and grant money that will help them accomplish things with the least impact to our taxes. The benefit of what they learn could far outweigh the cost of the trip if the knowledge gained there is used well.
Think of the money Larry could have saved us if he had gone to the conference BEFORE helping con the commissioners into signing up for that nice ballpark for Jeff Loria.
Hmm.
Most fiscally responsible companies would make that 6 day trip a 4 day, 3 night trip. It appears that the conference schedule is set up so that people could fly in Sunday morning and out yesterday afternoon. There are optional pre-conference courses as well (did they all sign up for these too?).
Assuming this was a possibility and the listed numbers you have are fact, they could have spent the following:
10 hotel rooms 3 nights: $6,000
(Everyone booked $600 rooms???)
$150/day per diem 4 days: $6,000
(again above IRS guidelines)
10 Conference fees @$455 ea: $4550
That's a savings of almost $15,000.
I have to agree with Michelle here that these kinds of seminars for knowledge growth and the inherent networking it allows are invaluable in the long term for the individuals in attendance and their employers. Better yet, the focus of this seminar is managing finances in these trouble times, so shared experiences, creative solutions and learning potential is huge in this environment.
What I would question if I were you Grape, is not the attendance at such an appropriate event, but the excess nights, hotel room costs, exorbanant per diem, shared rental cars, vs. individual, etc. I'm used to CFOs controlling costs (with a few obvious ahem - enron - ahem exceptions) rather than taking advantage of them. They set the example for the rest of the company.
Well said, Paige!
Previous comments are completely missing the point, when defending continuing education. There is NO WAY ON EARTH that TEN PEOPLE needed to go to gain that knowledge.
In tight times, every company I have worked for has always reduced the number of attendees at these types of conferences to one or two people and had them report back to others in the department/company and share materials.
How in the world can anyone defend 10 people attendee a conference like this, especially when it's over 3,000 miles away?
Shame on Larry and anyone who defends this blatant boondoggle.
The cost for the rooms was $200/night, Paige. $12,000/10 = 1200/6 = $200. A pretty good rate for Seattle as I was just there in April.
The fees for flights are about par for a non-stop on Alaska direct from Miami to Seattle. Its a great flight too, albeit a 6 hour one.
$150/day per diem is absurd though. Breakfast for $20, lunch for $30, and dinner for $100 per person is ridiculous.
I also wonder what the $4k in "miscellaneous" was for?
I think Paige did a good job of pointing out that this couldve been made a lot less expensive had it been thought out and planned properly. Rather than taxing themselves with travel, they chose to tax the City.
Good catch on the hotel room costs Blind Mind - I pulled out the old Casio Calculator after that calculation.
BBB has a good point as well - 10 seems like a very big number, unless it represents 1-3% of the finance organization, which I doubt. Were all 10 of these people attending the event, Grape?
I'll be interested in the follow up on this story.
Grape...great investigative work! A story that the Miami-Herald could have printed but chose not to. Thank you Grape for breaking this story. A great job. See if you can get an interview with Mr. Spring!
Couldn't the Grapevine get details on the expenses and attendees via a public records request?
Wow! This is a average of $4,000 per person, more or less!!!!!!
Two people could have gone to this conference and come back and shared the information they received with their fellow employees. They saw a chance to travel on the City's dime and they did it. Who approves these trips anyway? As long as the Mayor or the City Mgr approves them, who is going to turn down a pd vacation and get away from the office.
Why all this Fuss aren't you all used to this by now. I'm still steaming that Rudy Crew was canned and is enjoying the spoils of a victor.
Too late. Larry Spring pushed the Commissioners to spend over $2 bil of the taxpayers dollars to bailout the privately owned out-of-state Marlins. Larry also pushed the commissioners to bailout Jungle Island and Island Gardens.
Don't we all wish Larry studied harder when he was in school?
You idiots, Miami is in its stongest financial position in decades, while the rest of Rome is buring. How shocking that Fianicial officer and his staff went to a finacial conference?? It is not like he went to Vegas to play golf...This sounds more like folks with an ax to grind, rather than looking at the imperical data of the City's successes in these difficult economic times, of which Larry played a huge part. It is easy to pick a part the bark when you are not looking into the forrest.
Anon@8:27
No No No The City is not in its stongest financial position. FY-09 has a 10.2 million defecit and FY-20 will probably double that from the get go. These two non-successes I am sure Larry also played a huge part. I think what you meant to say was, While Rome burns, Larry Spring plays his fiddle in Seattle.
Hey 8:27 did Diaz/Sanchez give you that number because the city debt speaks otherwise
The economy is in the toilet, so glad we can support Seattle in these hard economic times. While Miami pisses away money, we support Seattle's economy.
Fairly nearsighted comment Anon 9:43. Just off the top of my head I recall a large and global group of travel agents swarming into Coconut Grove. I'm sure there are more examples.
9:40 - The rating agencies that rate the city's debt are are the same debt rating agencies that rated all those mortgage derivatives AAA before they became "toxic assets." All I know is I keep hearing ALL of the commissioners warning us that the 2010 budget is going to be really bad. I think I'll wait to hear the 2010 numbers before I sing the praises of Larry Spring.
Paige,
Had you been paying attention, you would have noticed that the travel agents were private citizens who can do whatever they want with their own money, whereas ole Larry, a government employeee, can apparently do whatever he wants with taxpayer money.
Has anyone seen the 2010 numbers? I understand if Larry doesn't raise taxes then he may have to initiate lay-offs and wage concessions. That should be fun to watch when you ask a city employee to cut their salary from $125,000.00 to 115,000.00. I can hear the moans now. But really Larry is a very smart man and I'm sure he will get navigate us this financial mess. Rumor has it he is looking for another position outside of the ciyt. Let's hope he stays so he can help the new mayor guide the city's financial ship.
Larry did apply to the Gables but didn't make the cut so we are stuck with him. Who did he learn from - that woman that had the job before him that ran for Commissioner? The one that Manny raised all the money for from every place in the country except Miami and who is friends with Spence Jones who Manny also got in her seat.
Apples and Oranges...
My response to your "so glad we can support Seattle in these hard economic times" was there are many who come to our town to support our economy.
Some at their own expense and others at company and government expense.
I am by no means supporting the expense overages - too many people, weak control of costs - but I certainly endorse learning opportunities. In this case it was hosted in WA.
I would like to see a drill down on the expenses - did all 10 actually attend or were some spouses? were all of these charges expensed back to the govmt offices? these numbers look awfully round, where did they come from.
Larry Spring has pushed the Commissoners into one bad deal after another. Manny "I love concrete" Diaz deserves a lot of blame too. But it was Larry Spring who was supposed to do the due diligence. Larry sounded like a paid shill for the Marlins. That fiasco will divert over $2 bil from the taxpayers to the bondholders. It will be the bondholders who purchase $300 mil to $500 mil in bonds who will receive the taxpayers $2 bil. Imagine if the taxpayers got to keep and reinvest the $2 bil on their own? Imagine how many businesses could have been started and how many actual long term local jobs could have been created?
Then Larry pushed the City into the failed Jungle Island scam, a $45 mil plus loss to the taxpayers and Larry pushed the taxpayers into the Watson Island Island Gardens scam. That prevented Watson Island from being used by a real company. Thanks Larry.
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