They bought first-class and premium airfare. They’ve eaten at banquet award dinners. One expensed a $200 meal at a lounge. They’ve attended governing and timber industry conferences around the country, staying in Jackson Hole, Sunriver, Skamania Lodge and Sun Valley.

These are examples of how Douglas County commissioners spent $43,000 in federal money meant to help their struggling county over the past five years. The trips were underwritten by the Secure Rural Schools program, which pays jurisdictions like Douglas County that suffered financially after endangered species listings curtailed federal logging.

The money was supposed to be spent on firefighting, wildfire planning and search and rescue efforts. Instead it was spent on behalf of leaders in a county so broke that it shut down all its libraries in 2017. Much of their federally funded travel was to lobby Congress against restrictions on federal logging.

Douglas County charged The Oregonian/OregonLive $2,000 for the records that reveal these questionable expenditures. The newsroom paid the fee. The county delivered the documents and said the request was closed, then demanded another $700 after a reporter asked questions about the spending detailed in them.

Commissioners said their expenditures were proper and that the U.S. Forest Service, which disburses the federal money, audits the spending.

The Forest Service does not perform such audits, its officials have previously said.

One commissioner, Chris Boice, traveled for two nights in November 2016 to a remote outpost in Arizona to talk about forest management policy with Doyel Shamley, a natural resources consultant who’s also a far-right conspiracy theorist. A 2014 profile of Shamley in Mother Jones described him as believing “UFO sightings are a false-flag operation by the Illuminati to accumulate more power.”

Through the county’s spokeswoman, Boice said he went to meet Shamley because of his success working with the U.S. Forest Service on managing federal lands for fire resiliency and job creation. “He is unaware of what Mr. Shamley does by night, nor does he care what Mr. Shamley, you, or anyone else does in their spare time,” the spokeswoman wrote.

Boice upgraded his airfare on one leg of his travel to premium class and paid for upgrades to his rental car, too. He drove from Albuquerque to meet Shamley in Springerville, Arizona in a Chrysler 300S equipped with satellite radio. The spokeswoman said Boice didn’t request the upgrades.

“He is an above average sized man who tries to be considerate of whomever the poor soul who has to sit next to him for several hours, may feel about him overflowing into their seat,” the spokeswoman said. “Therefore, he may have asked for an aisle exit row or bulkhead seat.”

Most government agencies do not permit public employees to use taxpayer money for unnecessary perks. They require workers to travel frugally in coach.

Hundreds of pages of records obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive show Douglas County’s commissioners have used the federal money to pay for expenses that have nothing to do with firefighting or wildfire planning.

Chris Boice, a Douglas County commissioner. (Michael Sullivan/The News-Review via AP)

The 653 pages of records cover expense accounts for six county commissioners who have served since 2015. They traveled around Oregon, the West and cross-country. Much of the expenses were for basic costs -- hotels and airfare. Other expenses drove up the cost of the trips.

None has spent the federal grant money more freely than Tim Freeman, a former Republican state representative who became embroiled in scandal in 2012 after he and several other Republican lawmakers visited a topless bar during a California golfing trip.

Freeman has repeatedly spent the federal funds to upgrade flights to premium class seats and once to first class. He took a $66 jet boat dinner tour on the Rogue River during one conference.

Tamara Howell, a county spokeswoman, responded on Freeman’s behalf. She said he flew first class to Washington, D.C. last year because he received an invitation on short notice to hear President Donald Trump deliver remarks on America’s environmental leadership at the White House. A first-class seat was the only one available, she said. Federal money upgraded Freeman’s seat to premium class and he paid the difference.

“Any minor upgrades for premium class are for aisle seats to accommodate the larger stature of the Commissioner,” Howell wrote, “as well as to comply with specific airline size restrictions for passengers.”

According to Alaska Airlines’ website, the $79 premium class seats to which Freeman repeatedly upgraded are not larger, but do come with four inches of extra legroom, priority boarding and complimentary cocktails, wine and beer.

Howell said Freeman “makes no excuses for taking his dog” to Sunriver. “Many people travel with companion animals,” she wrote.

The jet boat dinner tour on the Rogue River happened during a forest fire, allowing Freeman “to directly observe fire crews and helicopters fighting that fire,” she said.

Freeman has spent the money in ways that current county policy explicitly prohibits.

He spent $1,500 for 38 meals for which he provided no itemized receipt. Most of them were dinners. The priciest: a $205 evening visit in May 2018 to Brix Chill, a Roseburg lounge.

The county’s expense policy, posted on its website, requires county employees to account for how they spend public money in restaurants. It also prohibits spending on alcohol. Freeman, one of three elected leaders who control the county’s budget, was reimbursed even though he didn’t have itemized receipts.

A county worker raised concerns about Freeman’s spending in February 2019, asking Freeman’s assistant to be sure the commissioner provided itemized receipts for meals. But just as he had before, Freeman continued to file dinner expenses without itemizing them.

Howell, the county spokeswoman, said in her statement that “no alcohol was ever purchased using county funds. All receipts at these restaurants are for meals only.”

She said the county’s itemization policy was recent, without specifying when it took effect.

The newsroom’s effort to investigate the county’s spending exposes major weaknesses in Oregon’s public records law. The county didn’t provide records for more than six months. The county charged the newsroom $1,972 for the receipts and refused to waive the fee.

The newsroom paid in November and the county released the records Dec. 30, saying the request was closed.

But after a reporter asked questions about the spending described in the documents this week, the county’s spokeswoman said the request wasn’t actually closed. The newsroom now owes another $693.77, the county said this week. The extra fee would cover costs for the county finance director who spent 13 hours reviewing the records -- at a rate of $96.21 per hour.

Therese Bottomly, editor of The Oregonian/OregonLive, said public bodies in Oregon too often use high fees to thwart disclosure of public records.

“The Oregonian/OregonLive chose to pay because we believe the public has a right to this information,” Bottomly said. “Now, they are hiking the price by having highly paid officials review the records. What if a resident of the county asked for this information? What if she couldn’t afford to pay the fee? Citizens have already paid once to create these records, through their tax dollars. They shouldn’t have to pay a second time.”

The national Secure Rural Schools program has given $3 billion to Oregon counties since Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, co-authored legislation creating it in 2000.

But Douglas County has struggled to adjust to the decline in federal logging, which once helped subsidize the county’s low property tax rates.

Douglas County has repeatedly drawn criticism for its spending of the federal money. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Portland, said the county “blatantly” misspent it after the newsroom’s 2017 investigation revealed county officials awarded $250,000 to a nonprofit to create promotional videos meant to resurrect federal timber harvests. Blumenauer in 2019 called for a Congressional investigation into the county’s spending.

Before 2008, the money could be spent for a small number of reasons including educational after-school programs. Douglas County commissioners have previously said their spending met that description.

After the newsroom’s earlier reporting, Wyden introduced legislation to prohibit counties from spending the money on lobbying. Wyden has been pushing to make the Secure Rural Schools program permanent. A Senate committee in December advanced the lobbying prohibition; the full Senate has not yet taken it up.

Correction: An earlier version of this post inaccurately included pet travel as an expense paid by federal funds. A county credit card was used to pay for Commissioner Tim Freeman’s dog to stay with him in 2017, but the credit card statement shows refunds from the hotel that match what appear to be this cost. It is unclear who paid. A handwritten note on the county’s credit card statement says it was “AOC,” which Freeman said is the Association of Oregon Counties. He said he paid the hotel in cash for his dog’s stay and didn’t know why AOC appeared on the credit card bill.

— Rob Davis

rdavis@oregonian.com

503.294.7657; @robwdavis

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