(The following story by Michelle Krupa appeared on The Times-Picayune website on September 26, 2010.)
NEW ORLEANS, La. — When it came to throwing parties, Jim Bridger loved to play host. And he had the perfect spot for entertaining.
“Since I run the railroad I can do anything that I want to do with the rail cars,” Bridger, then general manager of the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad, wrote to a neighbor in June 2008, referring to two swanky Pullman cars owned by the quasi-city agency.
“Therefore, you will be having Kevin’s birthday party aboard the ‘Louisiana’ and your party is on me,” he wrote in an e-mail message. “I will pick up the caterer and booze/wine as well.”
When Bridger said “I,” he apparently meant “New Orleanians.”
Receipts for the event show that the Public Belt spent $970 at Martin’s Wine Cellar, one of several go-to vendors that Bridger called upon to cater lavish outings on the so-called business cars.
Asked recently about the get-together by state auditors probing the agency’s operations, Bridger initially said the party was for a neighbor who’d won it in a school charity auction. Presented with the e-mail message, he admitted the party had no charitable purpose.
The episode, described in a much-anticipated report by Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera that was obtained by The Times-Picayune, offers a glimpse into how Bridger ran the century-old, city-owned railroad from 2002 until he resigned this month after news reports revealed many of the same findings outlined in the 34-page audit.
Dinner with friends on the agency’s credit card. Buying luxury SUVs that Public Belt officials used for personal trips. Doling out lucrative contracts to favored vendors in violation of public bid laws. The findings share one central theme: Bridger, a former New York City railroad executive who earned $350,000 a year in his New Orleans post, saw the Public Belt as his personal playpen.
While sifting through Bridger’s e-mail account, state authorities also found messages with embedded pictures that “contained adult material of strong sexual content and narratives.” The messages were sent to and from friends and Public Belt vendors, the audit states.
In a 10-page rejoinder to the audit, which is expected to be released this week, the Public Belt’s board claims it had no clue about Bridger’s extravagance and his lax fiscal management. Commissioners claim they were hoodwinked by their own staff, including Bridger and, in some cases, Chief Financial Officer John Morrow, who was named interim general manager in August.
The board also blames Bridger and a now-deceased commissioner for establishing policies that led to loose board oversight.
“Many of these practices were unknown to the board and, in some instances, were purposely hidden from the board,” members state. “The board also was misled by NOPB management.”
Since voting last month to revoke agency credit cards and vehicles and to suspend use of the refurbished 1920s-era Pullman cars, all but four of the board’s 14 members have resigned at the request of Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who serves as board president; two seats are vacant.
The audit report indicates that five former commissioners also have repaid almost $13,000 to the Public Belt for events they hosted on the business cars.
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Crime Commission, District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro and Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux have launched their own inquiries into agency activities. The FBI has also received a referral.
In his own response to the audit, Bridger defends his tenure as a period of historic financial growth, capital investment and employee safety at the Public Belt. Financed by user fees, the agency, which oversees 25 miles of track in the city and the Huey P. Long Bridge, receives no tax revenue but operates tax-free.
He also says that neither an assistant city attorney who attended most board meetings nor any board member ever suggested that his credit card use or the Pullman car policy was inappropriate or illegal.
Bridger made similar assertions in a July interview with The Times-Picayune, in which he said he ran the city railroad in line with the standards of corporate America, in full view of the board. “If I have one regret it’s that someone didn’t put the bridle on me earlier and say, ‘Hold on, this is not Long Island, this is not Union Pacific,'” he said.
Bridger’s response to the state audit does not address most of the specific findings. In particular, he ignores the audit’s finding that despite his claims that the meals he charged to the Public Belt served a public purpose — often meetings with staff or clients — his e-mail messages suggest little business was conducted at many outings.
After a May 2008 lunch at Superior Grill, for example, Bridger described himself in an e-mail message as “totally cinco de mayoed” after having “three top shelf double margaritas and have lost the feeling in my left leg,” according to the audit.
Bridger’s $138 receipt for the meal at the Mexican restaurant described the purpose of the lunch as “Bridge Expansion” — an apparent reference to renovation of the Huey P. Long Bridge — the audit states.
In another e-mail message, sent the morning after a $98 dinner at Semolina that Bridger charged to the Public Belt, Bridger informed his sister: “Jimmy B. does not feel well this morning primarily due to the four vodka cranberries before dinner followed by two bottles of red wine with dinner.”
Receipts indicated that the dinner was a senior staff meeting.
According to the report, the former general manager admitted — when pressed — that four particular meals that he billed to the Public Belt between 2007 and 2009 really were personal in nature. The tabs for those meals, at restaurants including Ruth’s Chris Steak House and Commander’s Palace, ranged from $130 to $421.
In all, auditors found that Bridger charged $118,390 to his public credit card from late 2006 through June of this year. The auditors’ review of the 801 charges determined that 29 charges totaling about $8,300 were clearly personal in nature.
But the real number could be much higher. More than 700 of the charges, totaling more than $95,000, lacked detailed receipts or any receipt at all, the audit found. Among charges listed on detailed receipts were scores of payments for alcoholic beverages.
Bridger told auditors that the names and purposes written on his credit-card receipts might be wrong because he added them in April when the board’s acting president at the time, James Baldwin, requested a listing of his credit-card purchases.
While Bridger’s spending is the focus of the audit, the report also chronicles other eye-popping expenditures made on his watch.
It finds, for instance, that the Public Belt donated more than $255,000 — including cash, golf fees and decorations and tuxedos for charity events — to Children’s Hospital in New Orleans and the Louisiana Cancer Research Consortium starting in 2007. The money also paid for staff parties and gifts, such as crystal paperweights, the audit finds, adding that state law bars the donation of public money.
Meanwhile, the Public Belt since 2005 has paid out $1.5 million in employee bonuses, extra retirement contributions, “safety incentive payments” and “disaster relief payments,” the audit finds, noting that such payments all appear to violate the state constitution.
The sum includes a $6,780 “retention bonus” for Antoine Camenzuli, who earns $70,785 annually, plus benefits, to manage the business cars; a $7,500 “signing bonus” to an employee who switched jobs inside the agency; and a $25,000 payment to a bridge supervisor for “exemplary work performance.”
The Public Belt also paid additional benefits through a “safety incentive plan” that spent as much as $600,000 a year on insurance premiums, dinners and gift cards for workers who did not get injured on the job, the audit finds.
The safety program also carried a penalty: If any worker sued the agency within a year of getting hurt, the employee’s entire department would be denied agency-paid health payments for three months, the audit states.
The auditor also found that the Public Belt paid far more for its fleet of 51 agency vehicles than it would have spent had it used a state contract, because managers insisted on luxury features such as leather seats, entertainment and navigation systems, and satellite radio.
In all, the Public Belt paid $123,098 more for the 12 vehicles it has bought since 2007 than it would have spent under the state contract, the audit states.
Commissioners say they were clueless about the agency’s rampant spending practices because their accountants blessed the Public Belt’s internal financial controls with “unqualified opinions” — meaning the auditors saw no problems — on annual audits from 2006 through 2009. Those audits were forwarded to the state auditor.
The board’s response also states that between November 2002 and April 2009, commissioners received reports on credit card and other spending from Kathleen Norman, the chairwoman of the board’s Finance Committee. Norman died last year.
Though at least two other board members served on the committee during that period, the report blames Norman for never having “notified any other board members that any NOPB management practices were improper or illegal or that internal controls were not adequate.”
Under a system that the board claims was established by Norman and Bridger, Norman had exclusive authority to approve Bridger’s expenses.
The board also hammers Morrow, saying Finance Committee members thought he was “reviewing all expense reports.” In fact, the report states, he “merely signed the cover sheet.”
Board members claim they didn’t learn of Bridger’s rampant credit-card spending until Aug. 18, when Walter Becker, a former federal prosecutor the board hired to conduct a probe this summer, delivered his findings.
Becker’s presentation also gave the board its first full picture of how the Pullman business cars were used. Bridger controlled the cars completely, the board says in its response.
Bridger “told all board members that he wanted them to use the business cars at least twice a year and admonished them when they did not use the cars,” the response states, adding that Bridger refused to allow board members to reimburse the agency for the trips.
“Bridger explained that it was one of the ‘perks’ of being a member of the board,” the response states.
The audit finds that at least 299 trips booked on the cars between January 2007 and May 2010 cost $147,500 for catering and liquor alone; auditors did not estimate the cost of fuel, labor or maintenance.
About a third of those trips, the audit states, were for “personal benefit” or could not be documented. Of 123 trips for which a business purpose was stated, “a majority … appear to be driven by the individual personal interests of the board or administration,” the report states.
The audit highlights four trips held in 2007 and 2008 for former Lt. Gov. Jimmy Fitzmorris, and sets their total value at $7,275.
In its response, the board claims it only became aware “after the fact” of a Thanksgiving 2008 event hosted by Fitzmorris and a “host committee” that, according to an invitation provided by the board, included then-Mayor Ray Nagin; former Mayors Moon Landrieu and Sidney Barthelemy; former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Pascal Calogero and his successor, Kitty Kimball; then-Criminal Sheriff Marlin Gusman; all seven members of the City Council at the time; and WWL-TV anchors Eric Paulsen and Angela Hill.
Commissioners also claim Bridger purchased a third business car in February 2008 “without the knowledge and approval of the board.” Though he said it would cost only $700,000 to renovate, the Public Belt has spent more than $1 million on the car without finishing it.
Commissioners go on to say that Becker’s investigation found that Pete Messina and Blake Murphy, hired by management to renovate the cars, “were improperly paid in checks in amounts under $10,000 over several months” as a means of hiding the payments from the board.
The board’s response does not say what work the pair completed or how much they were paid.