They tell me a major piece of the investigation centers around how the top executives have spent taxpayer dollars on food, fancy hotels, and massages. Action News Jax pulled those credit card statements and the city’s policy around some of that spending and found they don’t seem match up.
Action News Jax went line-by-line, combing through 18 months of JTA’s credit card statements. The charges paint a picture of luxury travel and lavish spending. There are only about three dozen cards total, but they’ve cumulatively racked up nearly two million dollars in charges during that time.
Some of those charges were things like lightbulbs and office supplies, but sources tell me the Inspector General is taking a closer look at some of the other charges.
Action News Jax found a $600 dollar charge for massages, thousands for photo booths, tens of thousands for food and more than $17 thousand dollars for one executive’s tuition for a doctoral degree.
But the real sticker shock comes with the travel tally.
JTA is a local transportation authority. its projects, routes and programs are all in Northeast Florida, but in the first six months of 2024 it spent nearly $150 thousand public dollars sending its people out of town for work.
Action News Jax pulled the city’s policy on travel spending. It clearly states independent agencies, like JTA, are included in it, but the way the Authority has spent money doesn’t appear to be consistent with that policy.
City policy says, “a traveler shall select lodging which is the most economical available consistent with the duties being performed.”
But in just one month, one person spent almost seven thousand dollars on travel, including stays at luxury properties like the Costa D’Este Resort and Spa in Vero Beach, The Ritz Carlton Golf Resort in Naples, The Boca Raton Resort and Spa and Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress.
Records show JTA’s spending went unchecked until Action News Jax’s first story on the Authority in November of 2023. After, records show totals on the corporate cards went from the tens of thousands to the two thousand dollar a month range.
This kind of spending at the top is exactly why State Representative Shane Abbott passed a bill limiting administrative costs for transportation authorities. “If we are giving money for public transportation,” Abbott told Action News Jax during the legislative session, “that’s where it should be going. We’re trying to transport the public with that.”
JTA sent this statement about its travel, though it did not directly answer a list of specific questions, saying instead, “all travel is business travel. for conference/meetings, the jta will use the group rate discount negotiated by the host organization, or uses a government rate discount.”
JTA will likely have to address its spending, its plans to adhere to the new state law and the Inspector General’s investigation on Wednesday when it goes in front of the city’s Finance Committee for review of it’s budget.
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