Posted on 05/18/2003 3:01:57 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
On the morning of Nov. 19, 2002, United Teachers of Dade President Pat Tornillo excoriated school leaders over low teacher salaries and demanded ``a hunt for spare dollars that could go toward raises.''
But Tornillo himself wasn't so frugal. That night, he spent teachers union dues to stay in a $2,000-a-night suite at the Mandarin Oriental hotel at Brickell Key. Tornillo slept eight nights at the opulent hotel and charged it to a UTD credit card.
Total cost: $20,138.53.
``I went ballistic when I saw that Mandarin bill,'' said David J. Albaum, the union's in-house financial consultant, who reviewed the UTD's credit-card statements. ``A $2,000 room for a nonprofit union? Come on.''
Tornillo's spending is at the center of a federal grand jury investigation to determine whether the longtime union boss spent teachers' dues on personal luxuries.
Tornillo referred calls Friday to his attorney, Robert Josefsberg, who did not return three calls seeking comment.
The Herald obtained 21 months' worth of the UTD chief's credit-card statements, union checks and financial records that show the union paid credit-card charges totaling at least $350,000 between September 2000 and this March, with little or no scrutiny. Among the charges:
The Sinclair Intimacy Institute -- whose motto is ''Better Relationships, Better Sex'' -- Bed Bath & Beyond, Target, ABC Liquor, Sharper Image, even the historic Ahwahnee hotel in Yosemite National Park in California.
From the Neiman Marcus catalog, the 77-year-old Tornillo bought a pair of python-print pajamas ($175.73) and a matching robe ($149.10).
Pat and Donna Tornillo globe-hopped, often first class, through Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the Far East. Pat Tornillo charged $1,441 worth of tailored suits in Hong Kong and $978.26 in souvenirs in Thailand. Donna Tornillo, 56, charged $1,800 worth of designer clothing in one day in New York. The couple charged almost $4,000 at a jewelry store in Carmel, Calif.
Teachers' dues paid for it all, which Albaum said left the union so cash-strapped that it had to take out loans just to get by.
''We paid all his bills,'' said Albaum, who reviewed outgoing payments, but admitted that he never confronted Tornillo. ``We paid Southern Bell, the cable company, FPL. He didn't try to hide anything.''
FIGHTING FOR SALARIES
Many of the expenditures, UTD records show, came at a time when teachers were fighting for raises, facing pay cuts or trying to avoid layoffs.
Last November, Tornillo sat across from Miami-Dade County Schools Superintendent Merrett Stierheim and demanded pay raises for teachers and protection from layoffs for teachers' aides. He insisted that new salaries be retroactive, warning that he would negotiate ``until hell freezes over.''
''No longer are we willing to accept that you don't have money,'' Tornillo told the school district's negotiating team.
Later, Tornillo retreated to the Biscayne Bay Suite at the Mandarin, costing $2,000 a night. High over the bay, the 960-square-foot unit features bamboo floors, a marble open shower, a deep-soaking tub and floor-to-ceiling windows, offering guests an unparalleled view of Miami. That night, Tornillo charged $84 worth of beverages from the in-room bar.
During his eight-day stay, Tornillo regularly ordered room service, used the bar, had clothes laundered, and lounged in the spa.
He checked out on Nov. 23, charging it to a UTD American Express card.
His rental apartment is just 300 yards away.
Albaum said Tornillo caught so much grief over the Mandarin bill that he wrote the union a personal check to cover the charges. Albaum said that several weeks later, UTD bookkeeper Judy Bowling issued Tornillo a check to pay him back.
''I saw the check,'' Albaum said. ``It was for the same amount of the Mandarin charge. He turned around and had Judy B. reimburse it.''
Bowling declined repeated requests for comment.
The Mandarin charge, records show, was not the only indulgence. On Sept. 24, 2000, Pat and Donna Tornillo jetted to San Francisco, then to Australia, New Zealand and back to California.
They visited the world-renowned aquarium in Sydney and bought $332 in women's clothing the next day. In the New Zealand mountain resort of Queenstown, they charged $852 at the Bonz Gallery and $487 at the Queenstown Gallery of fine art.
In California, they landed in San Francisco and drove to Carmel, where they strolled among the town's famous cypresses and spent $1,310.94 on Christmas collectibles at Kris Kringle and $3,900 for a necklace and gold ring at Concepts Jewelry.
Their next stop down the Pacific Coast Highway was the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur. The cost on his corporate credit card: $4,279.87 for a few nights' stay.
The Tornillos drove back to San Francisco to end their vacation at the Bay Area's Mandarin Oriental, where they racked up a $7,306.24 bill.
The three-week vacation cost at least $49,715 -- equivalent to the annual salary of a schoolteacher with 15 years of experience and a master's degree. In terms of the union, it cost the annual dues of 59 teachers.
The following year, the Tornillos jetted off to Switzerland, India, Thailand and Cambodia for a two-week vacation that cost at least $27,000, union records show.
In its review of union checks for that trip, The Herald could not confirm that every expense was covered by the union, although much of it was placed on corporate credit cards.
Overall for this report, The Herald reviewed about $444,000 in credit-card expenses, with $350,000 in corresponding checks.
Albaum said the union paid all of the expenses. He said Tornillo simply turned in his monthly statements to Bowling to be paid.
Albaum acknowledged that he approved many of the checks. He never confronted Tornillo and never told the executive board during its monthly meetings. His explanation: 'Tornillo demeaned people. He'd tell them, `Get outta here.' ''
Albaum said the board never questioned Tornillo either. In one financial report prepared for the board, Tornillo's spending is listed under a line item, ``Community Affairs and Organizational Relations.''
Albaum said he showed the charges to UTD Secretary-Treasurer Shirley Johnson, who expressed concern.
''I thought it was her job to do,'' he said. ``She said she would talk to Pat and even went to lunch with Mrs. Tornillo on Jan. 28 to talk about the spending.''
On Jan. 17, Johnson sent an angry e-mail to Tornillo, claiming that her signature was being stamped on checks that she had never seen or approved. All union checks required both Johnson's and Tornillo's signatures.
Johnson wrote that she had met with Albaum, Bowling and James Angleton Jr., the UTD's chief financial officer, about ``using our signature stamps and stamping both of our names on checks we never see or sign.''
''I sent an e-mail eight months ago about this and was very disturbed to find out that my e-mail was ignored and this is still going on,'' she wrote.
Neither Johnson nor her attorney, H.T. Smith, would comment for this report. Albaum recalled the meeting and said Bowling was the one who used the stamps.
Albaum joined the UTD 18 months ago at the request of Angleton, his friend for 15 years. Angleton -- who knew that the union was hemorrhaging money -- says he was tipped off to the questionable billing on Feb. 25 by Tornillo's longtime colleague Murray Sisselman, the former union president who died of cancer several weeks later.
Albaum and Angleton have become government witnesses in the probe of Tornillo.
MOTIVES QUESTIONED
Union officials and their attorneys question the pair's motives in going to the FBI, which led to the investigation. They say Angleton, as the chief financial officer, was in a prime position to know about the union's spending -- and do something about it -- long before his meeting with Sisselman. None of the officials or attorneys would be quoted for this report.
On Sunday, The Herald reported that Angleton turned over to authorities records showing that Tornillo and his wife charged at least $155,000 for personal items, including antiques, a St. Bart's vacation, California spa visits, custom clothing, even groceries.
Tornillo earns $243,000 a year in salary and benefits. That includes a $42,700 stipend that is supposed to cover his business expenses, Angleton said.
UTD spokeswoman Annette Katz declined to say whether Tornillo has a contract that covers his personal expenditures. She also refused to provide a list of union-related trips that Tornillo took.
On April 29, FBI agents raided UTD headquarters and hauled off all the credit-card statements, expense reports, Tornillo's appointment calendar and more. Tornillo then took a leave of absence.
Three days after the raid, Albaum said, Tornillo returned to UTD headquarters with a stack of personal expenses.
''Tornillo wanted us to pay the phone bill,'' Albaum said.
The latest scandal is in Miami, Fla. Pat Tornillo, who built the United Teachers of Dade (UTD) into a behemoth union overseeing all 27,900 teachers and support staff in Dade County over four decades, placed himself on indefinite leave on April 30. He will continue to take in an annual salary of $243,000. The takeover occurred the day after federal investigators raided the UTD's headquarters, seizing Tornillo's expense reports, reimbursement forms, credit cards records, appointment books and tax returns.
Tornillo is under suspicion for using members' dues -- at $1,008 a year for full-time teachers the highest in Fla. -- to pay for personal property, hotel bills and other personal expenses. But Tornillo's critics point to more open deals between the union and the school board as evidence of mismanagement. Since 1996, the contract Tornillo negotiated with the board has allowed only one supplemental insurance broker, the Public Employee Services Company (PESCO), to sell its services to school employees. That company's office is on the ground floor of the UTD HQ, and the union owns 19,000 shares of PESCO stock.
Federal agents are also investigating Tornillo's role in selecting Raul Suarez del Campo to supervise the construction of the union's $20 million HQ. Last November, Tornillo and his wife moved into a $375,000 condominium owned by del Campo. Largely as a result of the construction costs, two banks have called for full and immediate repayment of $2.5 million in loans to the UTD. In one case, union officials wired $450,000 to stave off the call. In another, Miami-Dade school district officials have frozen the dues they collect for UTD from its members.
Said one source to the Miami Herald, "The best I can say is that it's synonymous with what happened to Donald Warshaw." The frmr. president of the Miami Police Relief and Pension Fund was convicted in 2001 for stealing from a children's charity to pay for sports tickets, Disney World trips, fancy clothes and dinners.
Since Florida is a Right to Work state, more than 100 teachers have resigned from the union since the scandal surfaced in news reports. [Miami Herald 4/30, 5/1, 5/2, 5/3]
QUOTABLE QUOTES / TEACHERS (AFT) Fed. Judge Blasts AFT for Failing to Stop Massive Embezzlement in Wash., DC "It's a sad commentary...It seems everyone in a responsible position fell asleep at the switch. The only ones who were vigilant were the thieves, who took everything that wasn't nailed down." -- U.S. Dist. Judge Emmet G. Sullivan (Wash., D.C., Clinton) Judge Sullivan made his comment during an April 30 hearing on a motion by local teacher Nathan Saunders to impose a court monitor on the Amer. Fedtn. of Teachers' temporary trusteeship of the Washington Teachers Union (WTU), from which its recently deposed leaders apparently stole $5 million. He was shocked to hear AFT lawyers say that while the AFT requires audits from its affiliates every two years (which the WTU failed to do), it had no legal responsibility to even verify that the audits had been filed. ****
Internal LINKS at source.
This one I'm sending to my sil, a retired teacher-(Florida) who doesn't appreciate President or Governor Bush.
...but thinks the 'teacher's union' is their friend.
TEACHER'S are too stupid to do anything but complain about Bush for their money problems.
He was a nasty, nasty teacher. I'm trying to remember what he taught, I keep thinking 'shop'.
TORNILLO'S many years of continuous service to Dade;s education profession began with his 1956 teaching assignment at Biscayne Gardens Elementary School. Subsequently, he taught at the junior and senior high levels and in the adult education program.
IN 1991, Tornillo was appointed to serve on Florida' s Budget and Tax reform Commission. In that capacity, he is helping to reshape state policies and practices with respect to education funding. this commission goes through the year 2000.
IN 1994, Tornillo was appointed to chair the American Federation of Teachers Technology Committee. He remains the chair of AFT's Futures Task Force which has established guidelines to help shape the goals and objectives for AFT's next 25 years. Also in 1994 he was reappointed to the Federal Reserve Bank Board for a new three-year term. his activities on that board provide significant input for his work in lobbying to change the state budget framework.
IN 1995, he was honored by Florida International University for his devotion and leadership in education.
FOR THE PAST several years, Tornillo has served as a Trustee of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce.
FIRST AND FOREMOST, he has always been a teacher advocate. Presently, in addition to his roles in Dade County, he is president of Florida Education Association/United (UTD's state affiliate) and vice president of the American Federation of Teachers (UTD's national affiliate). He is also a member of the AFT Executive Committee which includes 10 elected AFT officers including President Sandra Feldman and Secretary-Treasurer Edward McElroy. Tornillo's wife, Donna, is a former Dade County elementary school teacher.***Source
It's a tough job but someone has to do it.
Could it be because they are cowardly, stupid and greedy?
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