San Francisco Official’s Overseas Travel Draws Scrutiny
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The San Francisco Bay Area’s transportation planning and financing agency may face an audit and changes in travel accounting procedures after its executive director racked up tens of thousands of dollars in business-class flights.
Since January 2012, Steve Heminger, executive director of the nine-county Metropolitan Transportation Commission, has flown to conferences at destinations including Tokyo, Sydney, Beijing and Vienna, using tickets totaling more than $45,000 in taxpayer dollars, according to data obtained by Bloomberg News. Heminger flew to Sydney in July 2012 on a $13,000 flight -- almost eight times the cost of a coach ticket -- to speak at an Australian transportation summit.