State AG Rips Pittsburgh School Superintendent's Travel Costs

PITTSBURGH, PA - Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said Wednesday that the Pittsburgh Public Schools' travel costs have nearly tripled since Superintendent Anthony Hamlet's hiring three years ago, but there is little explanation as to how students have benefited from the trips.

A review of the district's travel expenses found the travel budget increased 179 percent over three
years, from $162,258 in 2016 to $453,231 in 2019. That means on average $24,250 extra every month is spent on travel, an amount DePasquale said is enough to purchase 600 iPads for students annually.

DePasquale also found that Hamlet and Assistant Superintendent Anthony Anderson travel out of state almost monthly. The pair have taken taxpayer-funded trips a combined 21 times in the last calendar year, mostly by air. The destinations have included Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, Nashville and Washington, D.C.

“I understand the need for some travel related to professional development, but there must be greater accountability and justification for travel,” DePasquale said in a statement. “District policies – such as requiring most staff to submit a post-trip justification report – are not being
uniformly enforced.”

DePasquale has sent three letters to the district since May requesting documentation of travel expenses and technology-education contracts.

Missing from the district’s responses are many of the forms required to justify each trip and conference that staff and administrators attend, including a trip that six employees took to Florida and Cuba in April 2019. Taxpayers paid for the airfare to Florida but a former district vendor reportedly covered other costs.

“The Cuba trip is what first caught my attention and no one has been able to provide written justification of how it benefited the district’s students,” DePasquale said. “Without it, how does the public know whether their school district is spending tax dollars wisely?”