Pa. auditor general accuses this Delco education agency of ‘frivolous’ spending on travel, food
An audit of the Delaware County Intermediate Unit "should be a wakeup call for every IU across the commonwealth," Auditor General Tim DeFoor said at a news conference.
Pennsylvania’s auditor general said Wednesday that “frivolous” spending by the Delaware County Intermediate Unit on food and leadership training should cause education agencies across the state to reconsider their practices.
“These findings should be a wake-up call for every IU across the Commonwealth,” Auditor General Tim DeFoor said at a news conference outside the Delaware County courthouse in Media, where he announced the results of an audit into the intermediate unit. The taxpayer-funded agency provides services to 134 schools, including for special education and professional development.
DeFoor, a Republican, said the IU had spent “hundreds of thousands of dollars on retreats for executives, team-building activities for staff, food any time they had a meeting.”
Jim Scanlon, the IU’s interim executive director, said in a statement Wednesday that the intermediate unit “is committed to operating with fiscal responsibility and transparency, and we welcome the opportunity to improve our processes.”
“The audit found nothing illegal,” Scanlon said. He noted that because the intermediate unit had only received the final audit 45 minutes before DeFoor’s announcement, it hadn’t yet reviewed final recommendations.
The audit comes after The Inquirer reported in March that the neighboring Montgomery County Intermediate Unit had spent $40,000 for its executive director and assistant executive director on international travel, including an African safari.
An attorney who conducted an investigation for the Montgomery County IU recommended that it start requiring board approval for travel.
The Delaware County audit, which covered fiscal years 2023 and 2024, found the Delaware County IU spent $40,000 for several administrators to attend a leadership training course in Orlando, Fla. The trip, which cost $100,000 in total, was offset by reimbursements, including $15,000 in sponsorships, according to the audit report.
The Orlando trip included a “Ride ‘N Dine” event at Universal Studios, DeFoor said. He said that event featured a five-course dinner and open bar.
The intermediate unit also spent $14,000 on a team-building retreat in Annapolis, Md., with a cruise around the Chesapeake Bay, and $250,000 on food and refreshments at board and staff meetings, DeFoor said.
DeFoor said the spending reflected “a pattern of taxpayer dollars being spent in a selfish and irresponsible manner.”
In a response included in the audit, the IU — which has been led by Scanlon since August, after the retirement of executive director Maria Edelberg — said it would establish standards for spending on trainings and food.
But it disagreed with any characterizations of its spending as excessive or questionable.
The IU “does not agree ... that the nature or cost of a team-building activity alone establishes that the expenditure was ‘extravagant,’ ‘abusive,’ or lacked a legitimate organizational purpose,” it said in the audit response.
It also said that “DCIU has verified that no DCIU assets were used to purchase alcoholic beverages for individual attendees.”
“To the extent alcoholic beverages were identified as available or included in a vendor’s description of an event package, that fact does not establish that DCIU expended public funds for alcoholic beverages,” the IU said in the audit response.
In addition to findings about its spending, the audit found the IU couldn’t produce documents requested by auditors and was missing copies of contracts approved by its board, DeFoor said. A school board member from each Delaware County school district serves on the board overseeing the IU.
DeFoor said Wednesday that “every IU needs to take a hard look at its practices and strengthen controls.”
