Auditor investigating hunting trip expenses charged to state


By the Associated Press

Published December 25, 2004

RICHMOND, Va. -- The state is investigating whether officials at the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries improperly charged about $12,000 in expenses for a hunting trip to Africa on state credit cards.

The four officials who went on the 17-day expedition to Zimbabwe said it was supposed to focus on global game management and conservation.

After Secretary of Natural Resources W. Tayloe Murphy Jr. withdrew state support for the trip, it became a vacation safari that bagged a white rhinoceros, an impala, a warthog, a kind of antelope called a nyala and a blue wildebeest, as well as providing insights into the relationship between hunting and conservation in one of the world's poorest countries.

Murphy ruled about two weeks before the officials departed that the state would not sponsor the trip, which ended up being financed primarily by the department's chairman, Daniel A. Hoffler, a Tidewater developer.

An anonymous tip to the state fraud hot line reported that three high-ranking officials in the department already had bought about $12,000 worth of clothing, luggage and equipment for the trip, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported in Saturday's editions. The newspaper said it was told of the allegations on the condition of anonymity.

Game officials say that all of the purchases are being used by the agency.

Murphy told The Times-Dispatch that he won't make any judgment on the purchases until after the state's internal auditor completes his investigation and issues his conclusions.

"There is a distinction between doing something improper and a decision with which one disapproves ... . No one has shown me any evidence of any wrongdoing at the game department," he said.

Murphy determined that the trip was not necessary to improve game management and conservation in Virginia.

"We were uncomfortable with it," said David K. Paylor, deputy director of natural resources.

The governor or his Cabinet secretaries must approve any state-sponsored trip outside of the United States.

Hoffler, the board's chairman, said the trip would have been legitimate state business for an agency that has an important role in policing global trade in animal poaching and smuggling.

The allegation of credit-card misuse, he said, is part of a broader vendetta by a group of disgruntled game wardens and their allies.

"There are outside people who would like to see the department not go forward," said Hoffler, whom Gov. Mark R. Warner appointed to the board in 2002.

Hoffler and other game officials say they want the department to become more modern and professional. In the past, they say, the agency has operated through fiefdoms with little public supervision.

Critics say the department is wasting public funds and rewarding political cronies while neglecting game wardens and other assets of the $45 million agency, which is financed primarily by fees paid by hunters, anglers and boaters.


Information from: Richmond Times-Dispatch, http:// www.TIMESDISPATCH.COM

Looks like somebody got caught with their hands in the cookie jar-good for them.

Your tax money at work, it would seem?
- mike

I wonder if they hunted with OoA? Hmmm.

Seems like they might have been poaching...if they shot that Rhino in Zimbabwe they will have violated Zimbabwe hunting law & contravened CITES as well...hope the bastards burn for that I guess if they come from the department responsible for confiscating illegally imported trophies it wouldnt have been too difficult for them to get a trophy in without the proper paperwork hey?? Ganyana - I hope you see this!!!

Typical goverment employees.

they cry the blues about how underpaid and overworked they are (yeah right) but never mention all the other perks they steal from us taxpayers.

Where do I submit my application for "political crony"?
I am not quite ready to burn them all at the stake yet based on the Richmond Times Dispatch or any single "expose" article. Working in an industry that frequently has all of the facts twisted around & misrepresented, but spouted as the gospel truth by the media, I look with a bit of skepticism before I blindly believe.

mike

I thought this was a story about how they WASTED the money?

If anybody wants me, they will have to call my cell phone. I'm on my way to Virginia to apply for a state job!

Good ole Bill Clinton and family took a "vacation in Africa" at State expense, why shouldn't these guys?????