Hazel O’Leary

* Re your editorial, “When Frugality Is Saintliness,” June 26:

A Cabinet member who spent $335 per night for a hotel room and upgraded to first class for air travel on government money was engaging in a flagrant misuse of taxpayers’ money. For Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary to get away with this practice for over a year was inexcusable gross mismanagement by her superiors. Who approved her expense reports? Was anyone in charge of minding the budget?

Well-run businesses have expense policies which dictate how much can be spent on travel and entertainment. To ensure profitability, companies require that employees have approval by supervisors in order to be reimbursed.

How many more government officials have carte-blanche expense accounts? We keep looking to cut Social Security or defense budgets to bolster our economy. How many dollars could we save if only we controlled the expense accounts of our government leaders?

ELLEN J. NORQUIST

San Juan Capistrano

* The Times, in its story of June 25, “reveals” that O’Leary, who oversees a budget of $17.5 billion, has begun upgrading her air flights so that the median price of each trip is $671. She confers with associates and works on those flights. A $17.5-billion agency and her offense is $671 per trip?

Have any of you at The Times ever tried to work jammed in the “cheap seats” (where I travel) in the back of the airplane? Is that the best The Times can do to find waste and abuse in government?

L. W. COHEN

Vista