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First 5: Professor cruisin' in taxpayer-funded car for three years
Ex-director got lease payments instead of mileage reimbursement
| Saturday, Oct 28 2006 8:30 PM
Last Updated: Saturday, Oct 28 2006 10:13 PM
For three years, a Cal State Bakersfield professor got a car allowance on the public's dime through an apparent handshake deal.
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Editor's note: Some of these documents have been altered to protect privacy or to enhance clarity.
Car payment
First 5 reimbursed Nyberg's car payments for three years. The research center paid the remaining $50 each month. The deal was apparently never formalized in writing.
Lease agreement
Nyberg's 2004 lease agreement for a convertible Solara, with the "personal use" box checked.
Free car, plus mileage?
Nyberg billed hotel and food to First 5 for a Sacramento trip in 2003; he'd stopped claiming mileage when First 5 provided him a car allowance. But on a separate claim filed the same day, he billed mileage to a state drug abuse program for a Sacramento trip with the same return date.
New York computer
Cal State researchers shipped a new computer directly to the home of a New York state consultant. Later, they also charged First 5 for this software package, among other items. The consultant's claims show only 32 hours of work for the research center.
Charter flight
A charter flight brought the director of Inyo County's First 5 to a Morro Bay retreat hosted by Cal State researchers. Researchers held five overnight retreats on the public's dime, four of them in Morro Bay, through the First 5 evaluation contract.
Satchels and such
University researchers charged $1,300 worth of logo goods, including embroidered handbags to First 5.
Office furniture
A sofa and bookcases were shipped to Dr. Nyberg at Cal State Bakersfield.
News from First 5 Kern
Read executive director Steve Ladd's special edition newsletter debunking The Californian’s story. Some information in the newsletter, sent by First 5 Kern Oct. 26, differs from answers Ladd originally provided The Californian for this story.
Kenneth Nyberg, former director of the university's Applied Research Center, received the allowance through an evaluation contract with several county First 5 agencies, including Kern's.
Flat payments were cheaper than mileage reimbursement, First 5 and university officials say, because Nyberg drove so much between participating counties.
A Californian analysis of Nyberg's travel claims, however, shows otherwise.
Here's how the payments worked.
From about February 2002 to March 2005, First 5 reimbursed Nyberg the bulk of his monthly lease payment instead of paying mileage.
First 5 initially paid $493.05 a month.
The figure climbed to $639.87 monthly in May 2004, documents show, when Nyberg leased a new Toyota Solara convertible.
Throughout the arrangement, the research center kicked in an additional $50 to cover the full amount of Nyberg's lease.
Meanwhile, Nyberg's travel declined significantly.
For the final two years of the arrangement, mileage would have been considerably cheaper for First 5 than the car allowance, an analysis of travel claims shows.
In April 2003, for example, Nyberg's 600 or so miles of First 5 driving would have cost about $207, based on Cal State mileage rates at the time.
He needed to log at least 1,200 miles a month, even after mileage rates rose, to make lease payments a savings for First 5.
Yet over the next two years, Nyberg averaged only about 350 miles a month.
His highest claim was 850 miles. Some months he submitted no travel paperwork at all.
What's more, Nyberg continued to collect mileage from contracts with other clients -- even for the same trips.
In July 2003, for example, Nyberg drove to Sacramento for First 5 and claimed hotel, meals and parking.
On a separate claim -- filed the same day and approved by the same person, former research center co-director J. Daniel McMillin -- Nyberg expensed mileage to a state drug abuse program for a one-day Sacramento trip with the same return date.
On that claim, Nyberg billed $210.80 for driving 611 miles.
(See the documents for yourself at bakersfield.com.)
It's impossible to know, without looking at claims from all research contracts, how common such dual filings were.
Nyberg did not reply to several e-mailed requests for comment. He entered an early retirement program in June and is not scheduled to teach again until January.
McMillin, through several e-mail exchanges, refused to comment unless he was allowed to review written questions in advance.
It's not clear whether the car payments were counted as possible income by Nyberg or former managers at the university's private foundation, which oversaw the research center until last year.
The university, which wrote Nyberg's paychecks as usual, never knew about the deal, campus officials say. Nyberg's time, like other faculty researchers', was essentially "rented out" by the contract. The contract money then paid for substitute teachers to handle classes as needed.
The only person at Cal State with a car allowance is the university president, finance officials say, and his is part of a taxable compensation package.
The deal granting Nyberg's car allowance was never laid out in the evaluation contract. So far, no paperwork has turned up from Cal State or First 5 Kern showing terms were ever put in writing.
Steve Ladd, executive director of First 5 Kern, said he and his counterparts from five other nearby counties made the decision.
"Lots of people have car allowances at their work, and that was his car allowance," Ladd said. "Our evaluation partnership agreed to reimburse the university, or ARC, for that car allowance, as I said, rather than mileage."
First 5 commissioners weren't told about the reimbursement.
"The commission doesn't vote on ARC's car allowance," Ladd said. "That's the university's policy."
University officials, however, say they've never known of any professor getting a car allowance.
Ladd and campus officials say Nyberg's car payments stopped after other counties dropped out of the evaluation contract.
The paperwork, again, shows otherwise.
By July 2004, the evaluation partnership had faded away, leaving only Kern.
Nyberg's payments continued another nine months.
His final check came in March 2005 -- just before research center operations began a move from the private foundation to the university the following month.
In all, First 5 paid about $17,555 toward Nyberg's car lease.