DCF administrator reports accepting expenses from contractor (Jeb's admin)

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Thu, Jul. 08, 2004

DCF administrator reports accepting expenses from contractor

Associated Press


MIAMI - A high-ranking administrator in the Department of Children & Families who was placed on leave during an investigation into allegations that he accepted a trip to Australia from a company working for the state reported taking lodging, food and drink expenses from another state contractor.

DCF Deputy Secretary Ben Harris accepted $1,211 in expenses and a $500 speaking fee from Attachmate, a Washington technology company that has done $215,000 worth of business with DCF since 2002, according to Ethics Commission records obtained by The Miami Herald.

Harris, the top technology administrator, also reported taking $500 in lodging, food, and speaker's fees from InterSystems, Corp., a Massachusetts company that won a $550,000 no-bid contract to supply software for DCF's child welfare computer system.
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Gov. Jeb Bush said the trips and gifts appeared to violate his long-standing policy on gifts.
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/9104866.htm
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[Judi Lynn]

1. This guy's going for the gusto!

Posted on Thu, Jul. 08, 2004

AGENCY PROBE


Another free trip for aide at DCF

The DCF's No. 2 man, already on paid leave while he's being investigated to going on junkets paid for by contractors the agency uses, acknowledges another such trip.

BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER AND MARY ELLEN KLAS

[e-mail]


Four days after the Florida Department of Children & Families' second-ranking administrator was placed on leave amid an investigation into his acceptance of gifts and travel from a state contractor, Deputy Secretary Ben Harris reported another trip he took courtesy of a different contractor.
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Last week, Harris and Glenn Palmiere, information technology director at DCF, were placed on leave amid reports that they had taken another trip paid for by the same company, InterSystems. That trip was to Australia for a technology conference.
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Ethics commission records show Palmiere also traveled to Orange County, Calif., on March 2, and spent four nights at a resort, also paid for by InterSystems. The cost of the trip was $1,257, records show. In the June 28 disclosure, Palmiere specified his relationship to the company as ``user of product.''

Four days after the March California trip, Palmiere took another trip paid for by InterSystems, though ethics commission records do specify where. On June 29, the commission received a disclosure from Palmiere indicating that he reimbursed an InterSystems official, Clint Moon, $387 for the cost of a hotel stay -- which included a $141 massage.
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/states/florida/counties/broward_county/9102378.htm