LOUDON COUNTY, Va. (WJLA) — County officials in Virginia are planning to tighten travel rules for its board of supervisors and staff after WJLA reporting exposed how Loudoun County Board Chair Phyllis Randall and three other county supervisors went on lavish taxpayer-funded trips to Ghana and Uruguay, .
Loudoun County Supervisor Kristen Umstattd plans to introduce new measures to tighten travel rules for the Board of Supervisors and their staff.
“We should not be sending nonessential personnel on taxpayer-funded trips,” said Umstattd, who added that taxpayers should not have to pay for supervisors’ chiefs of staff and aides’ international travel.
Umstattd questioned if county supervisors should even be allowed to travel internationally at the expense of the taxpayer.
But if taxpayers do pay for board member travel, Umstattd said flights should always be economy.
“And hotel stays should always be at fairly modest hotels,” she added.
Umstattd said she plans to propose an updated county travel policy as early as August.
“I’m hoping the board will update them in a way that is acceptable to our taxpayers,” said Umstattd.
In June, Randall and supervisors Sylvia Glass and Koran Saines as well as county staff spent more than $60,000 on a lavish taxpayer-funded trip to Ghana where Randall signed a sister city agreement with the Mayor of Tema.
Randall, Glass and Saines stayed at a five-star luxury hotel on the beach and they flew United Polaris Business class. The airline tickets cost more than $7,300 for each elected official.
Taxpayers also paid for Glass’s chief of staff to visit Ghana. And Randall’s chief of staff’s United Airlines ticket on Polaris Business Class cost taxpayers more than $7,400.
Randall’s and Supervisor Juli Briskman’s trip to Uruguay earlier this year cost taxpayers more than $33,000.
Randall and Briskman stayed at a 5-star luxury hotel overlooking the beach in Montevideo, they flew business class on COPA Airlines, and they hired a van costing more than $3,200 to take them to meetings, including lunch stops at wineries.
Taxpayers also paid for Randall’s chief of staff to visit Uruguay during the sister city trip.
According to the itinerary, Randall and Briskman visited a cannabis lab, an equestrian center for sunset cocktails, and taxpayers paid for Briskman’s $100 oversized bag fee on the way home.
“It’s fraud, waste and abuse, pure and simple,” said Debbie Rose. “And it’s at the taxpayer expense. Taxpayers who are facing high inflation, increased costs and cost of their daily lives of everything that they’re encountering: their food, their rents, their gas, layoffs, and they (board of supervisors and Chair Randall) are spending lavishly, I mean, opulence in terms of their accommodations, at every step of the way.”
Rose is an attorney and former school board member.
“It’s wrong,” Rose said of Briskman’s taxpayer-funded travel. “It (the county) has so many other important issues to be tackling. It has people who are in need. And this is where the focus was. During the time that they went on this trip, it was when the county was getting public input on their budget session, and they had only two public hearings to hear from the county residents about the budget and the particulars of what should or shouldn’t be in the budget. Ms. Briskman was gone for that entire week. And she didn’t attend either of those public input sessions to hear from constituents about the priorities of budgeting here.”
Rose is running against Briskman in the upcoming November election.
“She (Briskman) had excessive baggage,” added Rose. “She charged $100 baggage fee to county residents. And then when she came back, there’s a meeting of the board of supervisors to finalize the budget. She did a last-minute maneuver with a surprise motion that surprised even her fellow board members to increase board of supervisor pay. So it’s the level of entitlement there. It’s just really shocking. And when the rest of us are trying to make sure that our luggage fees are low, trying to make sure our bags are under 50 pounds and that people are able to even afford vacations or travel much less not even at that level of opulence. It’s just stunning and there’s nothing to show for it. Where do we see any results?”
Randall claimed in an interview that her trips help attract international businesses to Loudoun County.
“What are residents of Loudoun County getting from these trips,” Minock asked Randall. “What kind of businesses have relocated to Loudoun County as a direct result of these trips?”
“2,500 new jobs, $1.37 billion in investment, over 100 new businesses, and 27 businesses and in just the past two years,” said Randall. “That’s a very big return. I am quite confident that the Loudoun taxpayer gets an enormous return on investment.”
Rose doubts Randall is telling the truth.
“I don’t see any proof of that,” said Rose. “And those numbers seem incredulous given the countries from which they’re coming. And it seems to me that it’s really time to look into those numbers. But I think that once we do, we’re going to find that there’s not actually been any real meaningful economic benefit to our county from these trips, other than to the people that participated in these trips and got a very fantastic trip paid for by Loudoun County residents.”
Rose said county travel should be limited.
“Travel should be very focused,” said Rose. “And travel should never be simply to tour sites and wineries and to come home with souvenirs that we have to pay their baggage fees for.”
“Do you think the travel guidelines for board members need to be updated in the county, perhaps with an extra eye to the efficiency and cost-effectiveness?” WJLA reporter Nick Minock asked Randall.
“I’m always looking for efficiencies,” said Randall.
WJLA found Randall has visited at least seven countries on taxpayer-funded trips.
In 2016, Randall visited China with two county employees. The bill for the Beijing hotel was more than $4,000. Randall’s airline ticket to China cost more than $4,300 and taxpayers paid for seat upgrades, and a $172 excess bag fee.
In 2017, the taxpayer paid for a $118 suitcase for Randall’s trip to South Korea.
In 2019, Randall flew business class to India which cost more than $4,200.
“Do you plan on traveling in the future?” Minock asked Randall.
“I plan on working really hard to be here in the future. And then we’ll make decisions after that,” said Randall.
On Thursday, WJLA reached out to Loudoun County Supervisors Briskman, Saines, Glass, Caleb Kershner, Matt Letourneau, Tony Buffington, and Mike Turner and 7News asked do they support updating the county travel policy to reduce travel costs. They did not respond in time for the publishing of this story.
