CORPUS CHRISTI, TX — Some changes are expected to be made to the Port of Corpus Christi's expense reporting and the travel policy after results of an audit were presented to commissioners Monday morning.
The actual audit, which was performed by an outside audit company, only tested a sample size of the total expenditures. While the audit of the promotions and development fund saw no future recommendations for changes, 6 Investigates did see some from the audit of the executive and commissioner spending.
"They basically told us that all our travel expenses or most of our travel expenses were within our policy at the time, but they did make recommendations on how we can improve our travel policies going forward," Commissioner and chair of the Audit Committee for the Port of Corpus Christi David Engle said.
Some of those improvements included the requirement of itemized receipts, establish a pre-approval process defining entertaining business guests and provide a reasonable cost per person for meals.
This was a point of contention for some commissioners, who brought up seven-hundred-dollar dining excursions and thousands of dollars' worth of alcohol.
Several commissioners focused on purchases made by former CEO Sean Strawbridge, who spoke with KRIS 6 News after the audit was presented.
"It's my understanding that they found no deviations of me, of the commissioners, or of professional staff from the policies that were in place at that time," Strawbridge said. "which I didn't expect that there would be. Now, policies evolve over time, and if the Port Commission deems it appropriate to change the policy, that's well within their discretion and their right."
It is important to note that the last policy that was voted on by the full commission was back in 2009. However new travel policies were created by the former CEO as well as the CFO/acting CEO. Port officials KRIS 6 the new policy was approved by the audit committee, which consists of three port commissioners.
This audit, which has not been made publicly available, may be just the first step. Two commissioners that spoke with KRIS 6 may be in favor of requesting a full forensic audit. That audit would examine 100% of the expenditures, rather than just the 25% this audit looked at.
Also at today's meeting commissioners took some action they hope will stop a lawsuit threatened by the state of Texas.
The state has threatened to file suit against the port tomorrow if a mineral rights issue isn't resolved. Right now the port has an agreement with a company that intends to provide carbon storage.
The state sold the land being used for that storage but the state says the deal did not include the mineral rights.
The state alleges the current agreement violates their ownership of mineral rights.
The company was notified on Monday that the port had terminated its agreement with them.
