BY JACOB SZETO

MONTERREY, Mexico- It was 2007, and four coworkers sat at a table in Salon Morelo, a little club on the bar-lined street of José María Morelos in Monterrey, Mexico drinking cervezas.

These coworkers, all employees of the West Linn-Wilsonville school district, were visiting Mexico for the Universal Forum of Cultures, on behalf of their employer, a small school district located 2,300 miles north in Tualatin, Oregon.

The coworkers at Salon Morelo were just one of four different groups who made the trip to Mexico between the months of October and November. In total 20 district employees, including Dr. Roger Woehl, the district superintendant, made the trip to Mexico in 2007.

The tours lasted about five days each. The employees were mostly grade school teachers of all types from the first to fifth grade, including math teachers, health teachers and P.E. teachers.

The conference, considered to be continuing professional development, was paid for by the district, including their time, airfare, lodging, food and, according to records provided by the district, so were their beers.

The forum takes place every four years in a different location around the globe. The Monterrey forum was only the second since the forum’s debut in Barcelona in 2004. The Forum Foundation and the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) organized and sponsored the event.

Dr. Woehl first became aware of the forum not long after he formed a Sustainability Stewardship Team for the district in the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year. Representatives from around the district were sent to attend the portions that were principally themed as sustainability, health and wellness, world cultures and science.

When the district representatives returned, they showcased what they learned to about 75 to 90 attendees and started a new class called “Education for Sustainability,” paid for through a grant, which is a semester-long course and has been attended by 25 teachers in each of the three classes so far.

The forum was considered to be an international civil-societies event and encompassed four main themes: cultural diversity, sustainability, peace and knowledge. The themes were tackled through a variety of activities including exhibitions, special events, cultural expressions and dialogues.

Speaking events encompassed such topics as globalization, capitalism and the compatibility of Islam and democracy, all topics that you might find in a university classroom, not in third grade P.E. class.

The forum organizers did not shy away from controversial speakers. In particular, Peter Singer, the publisher of Animal Liberation, a book widely considered to be at the heart of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). ALF is a radical animal rights group, which does not discourage force and sometimes violence to achieve its goals.

Singer was a speaker for the globalization dialogue along with Martin Wolf, a free-market advocate turned Keynesian.

Many of the speaking events can be found on the Forum’s YouTube channel, including Mr. Singer’s and Mr. Wolf’s presentations.

Considering the distance of travel, the cost of the conference was relatively modest, only $23,000, or about half of a teacher’s annual salary, and was funded by the district executive administration budget overseen by Dr. Woehl.

Review of the records revealed several questionable purchases subsequently reimbursed by the district, including some obvious and some not-so-obvious alcohol purchases.

One group of employees split and expensed a bill that appears to have known beer brands Bohemia and Dos Equis (XX) with another questionable item written as “Lim.” Not including the 11 “Lim” items, 15 beers appear to have been expensed for a total of 120 pesos or about $12 using the exchange rate of the time.

Not only was the alcohol expensed and reimbursed, but the final amount expensed and reimbursed was more than the actual amount on the bill. Between all four expense reports that used the same receipt 397.5 pesos were expensed, 42.5 pesos more than the actual amount.

The total unqualified or overcharged expenses came to about $16. But any money spent on alcohol is more than is allowed by district policy, as well as any reimbursement amounts that exceed actual purchase amounts.

In an email to Oregon Capitol News, Dr. Woehl stated that district policy is for employees to “pay for any alcohol drinks on a separate tab or to not include them in their reimbursement.”

The group drinking Bohemias and Dos Equis wasn’t the only group with questionable drink purchases.

On one of the itemized hotel bills provided by the district, 545 pesos ($54) were spent on items that translate as either drinks or minibar purchases. Some of those purchases, 292 pesos ($29), appear to be for “food” according to a handwritten note initialed by Dr. Woehl, leaving 253 pesos ($25) of items left categorized as drinks and minibar expenses.

Dr. Woehl stated in an email to Oregon Capitol news that remaining drinks and minibar purchases on the hotel bill cannot be assumed to be alcohol and that he “consumed no alcohol” on the trip at any time.

The hotel bill in question was for Dr. Woehl and six others. Hotel bills were paid for by the district directly with Dr. Woehl’s district credit card and did not appear on individual expense reports.

Other questionable items included purchases for two “cervezas,” two “prince charles” and one “lager.”

Not all employees expensed their alcohol purchases, nor do we know how much alcohol was purchased by the employees and was not submitted for reimbursement. Some district employees took a more honest approach, subtracting drinks even when no one would have been aware.

It could be possible that some of the alcohol purchases were expensed by accident; but in the case of the shared receipt expensed by four different employees, it seems unlikely.

Emails from Oregon Capitol News to the teachers went unanswered.

When questions surrounding the alcohol purchases were submitted to the district for this story, Dr. Woehl stated that an “extensive review” was conducted of all expense reports. The district claims to have found a case where two “cervezas” and a “lager” were “missed” in their initial review. No other cases were identified.

The district claims to have recovered $11.60 from the case they have identified. Oregon Capitol News has not verified this claim.

See the documentation:

Air travel documents

Hotel Bills and documents