RTD Officials Log $270,000 of Travel

Directors of the Southern California Rapid Transit District and General Manager John Dyer have spent nearly $270,000 since 1984 on expenses and travel, including trips to Tokyo, Singapore, London, Paris, Vancouver and a variety of U.S. cities, according to figures released Wednesday.

And while receipts often were not submitted, board members have also been reimbursed for several thousand dollars for personal secretarial services, even though the board has its own clerical staff.

One board member, Nate Holden, billed RTD for side trips to his home state of New Jersey, while en route to Washington. He acknowledged that he visited relatives on the trips, but insisted that he needed to inspect the New Jersey transit system and saved money by using economy flights.

Some board members, such as Norman Emerson, spent more than $30,000 over the period, while another, Jay Price, spent $1,064. “I view my role as an activist on the board,” said Emerson, whose RTD-paid travels included London, Paris and Vancouver. “My activities should not be constrained to the four walls of the board room.”

The travel expenditures, as board members point out, are a tiny percentage of the district’s nearly $500-million annual budget, and 1985-86 travel expenses are down from 1983-84. Still, at a time when the district is under pressure to economize and improve safety without raising bus fares or cutting service, trips like that taken by several board members to a London transit conference last summer may be increasingly difficult to justify.

Such concerns are a “a legitimate question,” said board member John Day, who spent about $24,000 since early 1984 on travel and expenses. But he said he does not consider the board’s overall travel expenses “excessive.” Dyer said some trips are essential for board members. He gave as an example the swing that several board members took through Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong.

“I think it was a very valuable trip . . . because they saw the highest quality public transit system in the world in Japan,” Dyer said. In Hong Kong, board members saw how private development near stations can help finance transit construction and in Singapore they saw a major system under construction, he said.

Dyer himself spent well over twice the total of any board member on travel and expenses--nearly $78,000 during the period. He said much of that was ferrying back and forth to Washington to work on legislative matters, particularly financing for Metro Rail.

Holden said he wanted to inspect rail car overpasses and other features of the transit system in New Jersey because he is concerned about the safety of the proposed street-level Los Angeles County light rail system. “Kids are inevitably going to play on the tracks,” he said, adding that he brought back ideas for how the system could be improved.

Holden and other board members also defended their billings for personal secretarial services. Evidence of the secretarial work performed is often not attached to expense statements and one RTD staffer familiar with the billings said guidelines have never been established for the type or amount of services that can be billed.

Holden, who said he often bills $100 a month or more, said a woman comes to his house to help him maintain files.

Emerson, who also said he bills about $100 per month, said district secretaries cannot handle all of his RTD correspondence.