Friday, June 19, 2009

How do you spend over $200 just driving to and from board meetings?

[Note: see UPDATE at the end of this post.]

The June meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees will be on Monday at the "Gipper" room down at Saddleback. The agenda is available at the district website, as per usual.

I haven't had a chance to peruse it, but I did notice one minor item:

5.14 Reimbursement to trustees for mileage to and from required board meetings

It's for the period from July 2008 to the end of June 2009: one year.

How much could that be per trustee? Lemme ballpark this. Figure about a gallon to and another gallon from the Reagan Room. That's 2 gallons per board meeting, and there are twelve of those. So that's 24 gallons. (There're maybe half a dozen "special" meetings, but some of those happen on the same day as regular ones. I'm just ballparking here, so I'll leave 'em out of the calculation.)

OK. Figure $3 a gallon. That's $72. At $4 a gallon, it's still under $100. Tom Fuentes drives a Cadillac (natch), and he's claiming about that much. Makes sense.

Yeah, but some of these trustees are claiming over $200.

Gosh, what are these people driving? A Hummer full of fat Republicans?


UPDATE: thanks to DtB readers, who have posted informative comments, I think my query/accusation is essentially answered. Receiving 55 cents per mile for travel (to and from board meetings) adds up to more money than I figured, and the "55" rate seems in the ballpark of reasonable, when all (including wear 'n' tear) is taken into account.

So I withdraw any implied "gotacha's."

See? I can be nice!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

mileage reimbursement is per mile, not per gallon. I suppose that's why the term "mileage" is used. If it was calculated per gallon, it'd probably be called "gallonage".

2009 IRS mileage rate is $0.55.

So if I drive 15 miles each way to a board meeting, 12 times a year, that's 360 miles at $0.55 per mile which is $198 per year.

...regardless of vehicle.

Roy Bauer said...

Well, OK, but is .55 per mile justified? I'm not sure I wanna know how that is arrived at. Randomizer?

Anonymous said...

ask google.

just as an aside, do you ever wonder if the BOT or the administration deliberately highlights reimbursement items in the agenda?

I always found it interesting how the meetings which had some hot-button items for the bloggers also frequently had some subtle high-dollar contracts or personnel changes.

Say you wanted to slip in something a little shady... the best way to do it is put it on a packed agenda.

Better yet, wait for some scandal to show up in the blogosphere... Something like the Emeritus flap or one of Don's famous prayers.

Academic Affairs Dean for IVC? Didn't fly last time but if there's an hour of public comments on Emeritus crap this month, maybe it will slip in without much notice.

:)

Bohrstein said...

DPA CA

I used to work for the Saddleback hospital as a medical records specialist (Cool sounding, BS title). They were required to fork over money for me using my car to transport medical records. This number is actually pretty accurate with regards to what I was paying in extraneous costs.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...