Ex-board leader misused funds

OLYMPIA – The former executive director of the state Potato Commission “misappropriated” at least $8,500 in public money, spending it on unauthorized international airfare, jewelry and car repairs, then faking receipts to cover his tracks.

Those were among the findings released Wednesday by the state auditor’s office, which also found more than $200,000 in “inadequate documentation” for commission spending over the past three years. The report has been sent to the Grant County prosecutor’s office for possible criminal charges against former Potato Commission Executive Director Patrick Boss.

At first the losses seemed small. In May of 2005, for example, commission staff discovered “some modification of some documents,” and took them to board members, according to current Assistant Executive Director Karen Bonaudi.

That was on May 16, 2005, according to the state report, after years of improper charges by Boss. Just a day earlier, in fact, an auditor found that Boss had billed the commission for $393 in luggage.

“No one really had oversight of the executive director in terms of approvals” of expenses, Bonaudi said. Staffers submitted their expenses to Boss, she said, but no one looked very hard at his spending.

Boss worked for the commission since 1996, initially as a lobbyist. He took over as executive director in 1998. By last year, his pay had risen to $106,128 a year.

Shown the evidence of misspending, the potato commissioners gave Boss a choice: quit and pay back the money – which they pegged at about $766 – or be fired and face possible prosecution.

Boss quit, telling local reporters that he’d decided to pursue other career opportunities and to seek new challenges. He took with him $13,537 in unused vacation pay – a deal that auditors say was unnecessarily generous, since Boss’ contract didn’t require it.

“It’s time for me to move on, make the jump,” he told the Columbia Basin Herald. Commission Chairman Allen Floyd even sent out a statement praising Boss for having “done a lot of good things” for the potato commission and being well-known and respected among farm groups.

After Boss left, the commission discovered an additional $2,154 in unauthorized credit card purchases. He repaid that as well. No further action was taken. He also gave the $393 in luggage to the commission.

State auditors, however, now say that the scope of the misspent money was larger than the commission thought. Auditors found $8,534 in misappropriated money, plus another $3,545 in “unsupported, questionable purchases” made with Boss’s commission credit card.

The commission has a $3 million annual budget, virtually all of which comes from a 4-cent fee on every 100 pounds of potatoes sold by Washington growers. Travel accounts for about $250,000 of the commission’s spending.

The auditor’s office turned over its findings to the Grant County prosecutor’s office.

“The people who pay these assessments have an expectation that the money goes for what it’s intended for, like advertising and promoting potatoes and doing research,” said Mindy Chambers, a spokeswoman for State Auditor Brian Sonntag. “I think it would be hard to argue that purchasing jewelry is part of that.”

The commission also failed to tell the auditor’s office about the losses, which state law requires. Nobody knew that was the law, they said.

Bonaudi said the commissioners have filed a police report in the case and want full restitution, including thousands of dollars in extra audit costs the state charged to the potato commission.

Efforts to contact Boss on Wednesday at his home or on his cell phone were unsuccessful. His attorney, Garth Dano, was reportedly in court Wednesday and didn’t return a call.

State lobbying reports show that Boss is working as a lobbyist, with five clients paying him a total of $98,400 so far this year. Among those clients: the Odessa Aquifer Replenishment Coalition, the Columbia/Snake River Irrigators Association and the Port of Quincy.

Boss’s charges were the focus of most of the audit report, but auditors also questioned poor recordkeeping and above-par hotel bills by potato commission board members. Of 40 expenditures reviewed by auditors, 27 lacked sufficient documentation.

All told, auditors said, they found $216,608 in bills without adequate documentation. Two board members, for example, claimed $1,062 for airline tickets. Their receipt: a copy of another board member’s ticket.

The commission’s accounting and travel policies are now much tighter, Bonaudi said. Among the changes: all travel must be booked through the commission, and receipts are required for any reimbursement, unlike before.

“We had already started revamping our policies,” Bonaudi said, “but this has really turned up the heat on that.”