The motto of the New Jersey Schools Insurance Group is "Keeping Dollars in the Classroom."

From mid-2012 to early 2015, however, more than $150,000 -- all taxpayer money -- went far afield: Gift shops and coffee shops. Country clubs and a liquor store. Restaurants from Applebee's to Morton's. An aquarium in Camden County and a ballpark in Philadelphia.

Employees of the influential but obscure state agency used taxpayer-funded credit cards to rack up a litany of questionable expenses, a review of financial records by NJ Advance Media has found. The charges ranged from $4 at Starbucks to $2,386 for one meal for employees of the government insurance company, which is also called a joint insurance fund.

"Clearly, it's disturbing," Assemblyman Patrick J. Diegnan, the chairman of the education committee, said when told of the findings. "And in the very least it needs an explanation."

Taken together, thousands of pages of credit card statements, expense logs and financial records provide, a view of how the government's insurance business works in New Jersey: with a lot of wining and dining, all of it on the public dime, and some of it raising ethical questions for the agency and the districts it serves.

William Mayo, the head of the Mount Laurel-based agency since January of 2015, said most of the spending from 2012 to 2015 was business related and appropriate, but said he could not defend some purchases that occurred before his tenure. He said the agency has done nothing illegal, but is in the process of reforming its spending practices -- its Board of Trustees will vote on changes later in March. Its audits have come up without issues, Mayo said. And shortly after taking over, he cut up more than a dozen agency credit cards.

"I saw a need for a cultural change," Mayo said. "Which was immediately effected."

In the past, the agency spent money in part to "gain attention and favor" with public school districts and private companies that determine whether the agency will get government business, Mayo acknowledged.

"Might that have been acceptable behavior to the former (Board of Trustees)? It may well have been."

Whether that is still the case, Mayo said: "No."

"And our governance is much stronger, in my estimation, than it has ever been," he said.

It was too late for one member of the Board of Trustees, however. Mark Finkelstein stepped down in May 2015, a few months after Mayo came aboard, because he said his complaints about the agency's spending practices were going unheeded.

"I said, you know something? Good luck," Finkelstein said. "I hope you do the right thing with taxpayer dollars. But I didn't want to be a part of it."

Finkelstein, who was an unpaid member of the agency's governing board, added: "They used to have these lavish functions down at the conventions, these statewide gatherings, and I could never understand who paid for it. The retirement dinners -- who paid for that?"

The simple answer: New Jersey taxpayers.

Finkelstein said he pushed the executive director and other members of the Board of Trustees to conduct in a top-to-bottom outside audit and legal review of the agency to see whether any of the spending broke laws on ethics and public expenditures. But he was rebuffed, he said.

Martin Kalbach, the former executive director who retired in 2015, declined to comment.

"Investigations are good," said Finkelstein, the superintendent of the Middlesex Regional Educational Services Commission, a school district in Middlesex County that also runs statewide co-op programs. "Investigations are important."

Expensive tastes

The New Jersey Schools Insurance Group is one of more than 40 so-called joint insurance funds, or JIFs, in the state of New Jersey. Simply put, they are insurance companies created by the government, for the government.

JIFs operate in the shadows, but provide critical services for New Jersey taxpayers -- helping governments learn how to control risk, spreading out liabilities so no one particular town goes broke with an astronomical claim, and pooling know-how and negotiating acumen.

The New Jersey Schools Insurance Group is the largest schools JIF in New Jersey, with 400 school district and public charter clients. It is slated to take in $125 million in premiums this year, much of which will go back out the door in the form of insurance claims. The government entity insures $2.1 billion worth of school real estate, Mayo said.

By engaging in the insurance business, the NJSIG also straddles a line between a public mandate and a private ethos, which helps explain some of the spending that might seem atypical for a steward of public dollars.

"Although we are a public entity, we compete within the insurance industry for school business," Mayo said in a follow-up email explaining some of the travel, meal and other expenses.

Indeed, many of the expense reports show that NJSIG employees dined with insurance brokers and school officials who held sway over whether the NJSIG would get school-insurance business.

Take Oct. 7, 2013, for example.

The first credit-card swipe, from an employee who worked in a now-axed marketing department, came at Sona Thirteen in Morristown, for a $38 lunch. That was followed by a $53.25 purchase at the Famished Frog, a bar and restaurant located nearby on Washington Street, for booze. That was followed by a $45.50 purchase at the Grasshopper on the Green, a restaurant and bar on Morris Street, for dinner.

Joining the agency on those meals were employees, or an employee, from Balken Risk Management, a public insurance brokerage firm that appears frequently in the financial records, according to expense reports. Representatives for Balken did not respond to requests for comment.

Mayo, however, offered a note of caution about the veracity of the statements. Mayo said one New Jersey insurance broker contacted him after the credit card statements were leaked to say that although his name was on an expense report he had never gone out with them at all.

"It tells me that we're looking at less than fully credible records," Mayo said.

Multiple food and alcohol purchases in one day were not unusual for NJSIG employees, the credit card statements show. In fact, food was the most expensive line item from 2012 to 2015. Of the money put on the public's plastic in that 21/2 years, more than $68,000 was spent on food -- including a $1,819 bill at Bobby Flay's steakhouse in Atlantic City, and $2,386 at Rat's Restaurant in Hamilton, an eatery that features French cuisine and a decor "reminiscent of French impressionist Claude Monet's beloved town of Giverny."

NJ.com recently ranked the 27 most expensive restaurants in New Jersey; NJSIG employees charged the public to dine at four of them.

During the meal to Rat's -- No. 25 on the list -- only the NJSIG and its representatives attended, expense logs purport.

Employees bought booze, too. One employee spent $53 at Spirits Unlimited, a liquor store, in 2012. The purpose of that purchase was for "beverages," the employee wrote, and he said he was accompanied by school officials from Ocean County Vocational, Rumson and Shrewsbury.

The employees at those schools who were on the employee's expense reports for the Spirits Unlimited purchase said they had not been there with him or accepted anything from the liquor store from an NJSIG employee. To preserve their professional reputations against allegations they called unfounded, they asked that their names not be used.

The same NJSIG employee also took an agency-funded flight to a conference in San Antonio and put $21 in in-flight liquor purchases on the public's credit card. On the way back, he put $28 in in-flight liquor purchases on the card. On one of the flights, he charged $15 for in-flight entertainment.

That employee is no longer with the company.

Said Mayo: "Is that a legit business expense? I don't know. Draw your own judgment on that. Is that something that would be done today? No."

'You can't do this'

The NJSIG is hardly the first public entity whose expense accounts have come under scrutiny. On the federal level, congressional leaders have tried for years to rein in inappropriate spending with government credit cards. Department of Defense credit cards were used for gambling and escort services, a federal review found. In New Jersey, a taxpayer-funded trip to Poland raised hackles on the Hudson County Board of Freeholders.

Those travel expenses were just $1,500 for one county official, but managed to create a stir. Over the 30-month period of NJ Advance Media's review, the NJSIG put about $64,000 in travel purchases on taxpayers' cards, which included flights, hotel stays, rental cars and rides to the airport.

That was one of the many criticisms leveled by Finkelstein, the former board member. Business trips were fine, but why did eight people need to go?

Near the end of his tenure on the governing board, Finkelstein said he also raised questions about a retirement party. In April 2014, the agency paid for $515 worth of Philadelphia Phillies baseball tickets, plus transportation to Philadelphia, to fete Kalbach, the outgoing executive director. Finkelstein was told that the money was refunded after he complained, he said. (Mayo acknowledged that the proposed retirement party was excessive.)

"I just kept saying, this is wrong," Finkelstein said. "You can't do this."

Finkelstein said he continually peppered agency leadership with criticism while still on the board. For one, there was the sheer number of employees who had cards -- 16 in total, which Finkelstein deemed "extraordinarily high."

And then there were the dining companions. Though many meals were purchased solely by agency employees -- sometimes eating by themselves, sometimes with coworkers -- school officials and insurance brokers joined the employees other times.

Finkelstein said he was assured that the meals were open to a wide variety of people, which would keep the agency on the right side of a state ethics law that discourages favor peddling. If a meal is open to all, it wouldn't favor anybody.

But Finkelstein said he learned that only certain vendors and school officials were being invited to some meals.

New Jersey's school ethics law discourages school officials from taking meals or entertainment from vendors or clients if it's not offered in a widely available setting, like a professional conference, Finkelstein and other school ethics law experts said.

"If you don't have ethics and aren't operating in a compliant manner, in my profession -- well, there's no choice, you have to," Finkelstein said. "I didn't want to be associated with that organization."

Mayo acknowledged that spending practices were different before his tenure, but now there's a "new sheriff" at the agency. For example, Mayo broadly defended travel, but said fewer people are now going to out-of-state conferences and events.

Past examples have included the Association of Government Risk Insurance Pools meetings in San Francisco and Daytona, Fla.; the Public Risk Insurance Management Association convention in California; the Society of Human Resource Managers meet-up in Florida; and the National Fire Protection Association meeting in Las Vegas.

On previous trips to London to meet with reinsurers -- the private organizations that act as insurance for insurance companies, covering huge claims beyond the ability of the NJSIG -- more than half a dozen people tagged along. They racked up bills for meals, airfare, rides to the airport and more, at unfavorable exchange rates to New Jersey taxpayers.

This past year, however, Mayo went alone.

'Dog'

On Aug. 5, 2014, an employee of the NJSIG cut his bosses a check. He told them he had accidentally used his government-funded credit card for a personal purchase, despite a policy forbidding it. The memo line explains the errant spending: "Dog."

The $523.53 purchase at the Puppy Barn in Mount Holly was one of more than $4,000 in personal expenses that NJSIG employees put on their company credit cards and later repaid.

Two other personal purchases, however, were charged to the public's credit cards and were not paid back until NJ Advance Media's inquiries. Mayo said a $340 purchase at the Portland Pie Company in Scarborough, Maine, and a gas station were accidental purchases by a NJSIG employee in 2013. That employee said he had written his bosses a check to pay back the personal funds, but there was no record of it.

"I think it was a legitimate error, where that check fell behind somebody's desk, and it didn't make the deposit," Mayo said. "He since wrote a check."

Other purchases seemed to blur the line between personal and professional, but were not paid back. Employees purchased flowers on company credit cards nine times, for a total of more than $1,000. Mayo said that the agency spends public money to send flowers to clients who have lost loved ones. Employees bought staff-appreciation gifts or other knickknacks 13 times, for more than $4,400 total.

An employee also used an agency-issued card for a $196 purchase at Fro Me A Party, a party-supply store, and on the same day $87 for Dynamite Disc Jockey.

Those expenses likely went to help the NJSIG put on a showcase at an Atlantic City convention -- a public agency trying to win over public school districts, all with public money.

Such convention expenses, Mayo acknowledged, might be viewed as "excessive." But the agency's most recent convention events were significantly scaled back, he said. As opposed to past years, for example, they did not have a rock band, Mayo said.

"We provided food, alcohol, it was open (to everyone), and we had de minimis music," Mayo said. "A bassist and an organ player off in the corner.

"It was lunch money."

Brian Amaral may be reached at bamaral@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @bamaral44. Find NJ.com on Facebook.