CORAL GABLES — New details about Commissioner Melissa Castro’s January trip to Tallahassee are raising questions about how much taxpayers paid for travel that coincided with her appearance before the Florida Commission on Ethics.
The trip, which ended Jan. 28, cost $2,226.16 in all. Of that amount, Coral Gables paid $488.99 directly to vendors for Castro’s airfare and registration for the Florida League of Cities’ Legislative Action Days. Castro subsequently submitted $1,737.17 in additional expenses for reimbursement, according to city records.
In June, the City issued Castro a reimbursement check for $1,178.67, bringing the City’s total expenditure associated with the trip to $1,667.66.
The $558.50 difference between what Castro requested and what she ultimately received was not the result of the City rejecting particular expenses following a review. Instead, records show Castro had reached the $3,000 annual travel allocation provided to each commissioner after combining expenses from Florida League of Cities trips in December and January.
The timing of the Tallahassee trip has generated additional scrutiny.
Before traveling, Castro distributed a four-page memorandum describing her upcoming participation in Legislative Action Days and stating that the trip was “not optional or personal.” Her travel paperwork indicated a Jan. 26 departure.
Instead, Castro flew to Tallahassee on Jan. 23 — three days earlier.
That was also the day the Florida Commission on Ethics considered a complaint against Castro concerning her private permit-expediting business. The Commission found probable cause to believe Castro had a conflicting contractual relationship that created a continuing or frequently recurring conflict between her private interests and public duties. The Commission stressed that a probable-cause finding is not a determination that an ethics violation occurred; such a determination requires further proceedings. (Florida Ethics Commission)
Castro has acknowledged that she attended the ethics proceeding and traveled early. She has argued that taking the earlier flight saved the City money and said she personally paid expenses associated with the days before the Florida League of Cities event. She has characterized the controversy as an effort by political opponents to discredit her. (Florida Politics)
But the reimbursement records are prompting Mayor Vince Lago to call for greater scrutiny.
“The issue is not simply how much Commissioner Castro was ultimately reimbursed,” Lago said. “The issue is whether taxpayers were asked to pay expenses associated with a trip that included her personal ethics matter, and whether residents were given an accurate accounting of why she was traveling to Tallahassee when she said the trip was ‘not optional or personal.’ That deserves a complete and transparent explanation.”
The records leave a straightforward question for taxpayers: Which expenses were attributable to official City business, and which resulted from Castro’s decision to travel to Tallahassee three days early for a proceeding involving her personally?
