Transportation for ASU president Boyd a costly task

At the end of a nearly five-hour Alabama State University board of trustees executive committee meeting July 9, trustee Marvin Wiggins was putting president Gwendolyn Boyd through what seemed like an interrogation.

Wiggins had a pad of paper in front of him and was systematically checking off prepared questions as he fired them at Boyd.

He questioned: the cost of her inauguration scheduled for September; her fundraising efforts; her decision to make hires even after a board resolution that implemented a hiring freeze for all but essential personnel; her cost-cutting measures, or the lack thereof; and lastly, her use of ASU police officers to chauffeur her around campus and to other events.

It was the last questions, about her transportation, that seemed to irritate Boyd the most, and she replied to Wiggins' comments repeatedly, "That's fine, I'll just walk."

Wiggins' questions also angered students and alumni. Bea Forniss, ASU national alumni association director, said she received a number of calls and letters from angry alumni about the scene.

Wiggins, himself, acknowledged this week that he possibly could have handled the situation better, but he also maintains he was right to raise those questions.

Wiggins, a sitting circuit court judge, believes Boyd is potentially violating state law against public employees "double dipping" by racking up overtime charges for the officers who drive her around while simultaneously taking a $1,000-per-month car allowance and not owning a car.

"I do not have a problem with the president being driven anywhere, nor do I have a problem with her getting a car allowance," said Wiggins, who was removed from the ASU board by Gov. Robert Bentley on Friday. "But you simply cannot take the car allowance, not have a car and then cause thousands of dollars in charges to drive you everywhere."

University records obtained by the MontgomeryAdvertiser show that driving Boyd has been a time-consuming and costly affair for ASU.

Logs maintained by the ASU campus police show more than 100 entries of scheduled pickups and drop-offs between Feb. 1 and June 1, including to on-campus buildings — such as the Dunn-Oliver Acadome for board meetings — and to other locations around Montgomery.

The majority of the driving, according to police records, was handled by Cpl. Bishop Frazier. Over that four-month span, Frazier racked up more than $12,000 in overtime charges.

Overtime request forms filed by Frazier list "executive escort detail for President Boyd" as the cause of most of that overtime.

Asked about the charges, Boyd said a security chauffeur for the ASU president has been a "standard requirement" for several previous presidents.

"This is not a new practice and is expected of the president," Boyd wrote in an email response to the Advertiser.

However, former ASU president William Harris, who served three different stints as ASU's leader, said that wasn't true. Harris said he would use various campus police officers, and sometimes the chief, as a driver when going to the airport, so the university wouldn't be hit with a charge for leaving his car in an airport lot, and when going to events in which parking could be an issue.

"But I drove myself to work and around town," said Harris from his home in Hilton Head, S.C. "Honestly, I didn't want everyone to know where I was going all the time. I had a car and I drove myself — on campus and in town. I used a driver maybe once a week.

"Having a security detail has never been a requirement at ASU. It's just not necessary."

In response to the issue of overtime pay for Frazier, Boyd said that was something Henry Davis, ASU director of public safety, should have handled since he is responsible for scheduling officers.

"In executing his defined duties and responsibilities as director, he is responsible for scheduling ASU officers," Boyd wrote. "I would hope he had been scheduling officers for all campus duties, including mine, in a manner that did not call for overtime and was fiscally responsible."

Davis didn't appear to have much of a choice in which officer to schedule. Emails obtained by the Advertiser and sent from Boyd's executive assistant, Kathy Grant, to Davis show Boyd repeatedly directed Davis to make Frazier available to be her driver.

"Below is the list of events that Dr. Boyd will need transportation to and from," Grant writes to Davis in a Feb. 17 email. "She would like for Corporal Frazier to be her driver."

Providing her own vehicle to conduct normal university business is part of Boyd's contract at the school.

In a section labeled "automobile allowance" in the contract she signed Jan. 2, it states, "The president shall provide her own vehicle for business use, including traveling to and from work, and the board of trustees shall maintain an automobile liability policy on the president's automobile with the president as the named insured and will reimburse the president the cost of registering the vehicle."

The provision goes on to lay out the monthly allowance and states Boyd will be provided with a credit card to pay for gas and maintenance on the vehicle.

"I don't think it's an unreasonable point to bring up that the president cannot accept a car allowance and then be driven everywhere," said Wiggins, who noted that at this rate, the cost of providing daily transportation to Boyd would be about $50,000 per year. "I thought the questions were fair."