Exclusive: Fiona Ma asks taxpayers to cover her Sacramento lodging. Other officials don’t

California Treasurer Fiona Ma and her top deputy have charged taxpayers more for business trips to Sacramento than any other statewide elected official in the last three years, including ones who live much farther from the capital than San Francisco-based Ma, a Sacramento Bee investigation has found.

The Bee reviewed more than 2,000 pages of travel expense records from the 10 officials who have held statewide elected office since 2019 and their chief deputies.

During Ma’s first two years as the state’s top banker, The Bee found taxpayers spent more than $32,000 for her and her chief deputy to travel regularly from their homes in San Francisco to Sacramento, where they routinely stayed for days at a time at hotels near the Capitol. The two women frequently shared lodging “to save money,” according to their expense reports, making it difficult to separate their trip expenses.

Through the California Public Records Act, The Bee requested travel expense records from all of California’s statewide offices.

Ma is the only statewide officer who consistently expensed her trips to Sacramento as full business trips throughout her first two years in office.

Although several officials who live in Southern California routinely expense their flights back-and-forth from Sacramento, those officials do not consistently charge all of their meals and lodging costs to taxpayers during their stays, as Ma does.

In a statement, Ma defended her practice of charging taxpayers for her stays in Sacramento.

“I am a dedicated public servant who takes my responsibilities and stewardship of California’s dollars and resources seriously, and this will always be my highest priority,” Ma wrote. “Any suggestion otherwise is simply false and meritless.”

She pointed out that she runs an office that oversees hundreds of thousands of banking transactions each day and manages a portfolio of more than $175 billion in investments. She also chairs 12 boards, commissions and authorities.

“The broad and complex nature of my work and commitments requires that I and my principal aides go to where the demands of these critical functions occur,” she wrote. “We often must respond rapidly to unpredictable and dynamic events. During the pandemic this has meant going to the office daily, often when other government agencies were shut down, to ensure that critical business functions continue uninterrupted.”

Only one other statewide elected official in the last three years reported regularly expensing lodging in Sacramento: Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara. The former state senator from Bell Gardens continued to live in Southern California after being elected in 2018 to be the state’s top insurance regulator. For the first six months of his term, he asked for reimbursement of rental costs for a Sacramento apartment, which spokesman Michael Soller said was permitted by state law.

“He accepted a lodging reimbursement of about $100 a night and paid it to rent, rather than rack up hotel bills on the state’s dime,” Soller said. “He abided by the law.”

Lara stopped charging taxpayers for rent on his Sacramento apartment after June 2019, when the practice was “being misconstrued,” Soller said. He declined to elaborate.

Lara reported spending $3,700 in taxpayer money on rent for the apartment, and an additional $6,600 for meals and flights back and forth from Sacramento to the Los Angeles region during that period. Since June 2019, he has spent an additional $12,500 on flights between the Los Angeles area and Sacramento.

Alex Padilla, who lives in Los Angeles, charged taxpayers for Sacramento lodging just once during his second term as California’s secretary of state, which began in 2019 and ended earlier this year after Newsom appointed him to the U.S. Senate. His expense report describes that charge, for a $162 hotel room downtown the night of California’s 2020 primary election, as an exception.

“Due to the late night election monitoring, the secretary needed somewhere near the Secretary of State’s Office to lodge,” the report notes.

Normally, Padilla flew home to Los Angeles after his work days in Sacramento. His expense records show taxpayers regularly covered the cost of those flights. He racked up more than $16,000 in flights between Sacramento and the Los Angeles area in 2019 and 2020.

After Newsom appointed San Diego Assemblywoman Shirley Weber to replace Padilla as secretary of state, she continued his practice of expensing flights from Southern California to Sacramento, but not lodging costs.

Ma’s chief of staff, Genevieve Jopanda, was the only chief deputy reviewed who reported expensing lodging in Sacramento.

Loyola Law School Professor Jessica Levinson, an expert on government ethics, said Ma’s practice of expensing her lodging in Sacramento isn’t illegal or unethical, but does raise questions about whether it’s a good use of taxpayer money. Although the commuting costs she and her top deputy have racked up are small in the context of California’s $262 billion budget, the money still represents a significant amount to an individual taxpayer.

“She’s costing us money by deciding to live in San Francisco and commute part of the time in Sacramento,” Levinson said. “I don’t think she should be required to live in Sacramento, but I think it’s fair to ask about the wisdom of her setup.”

Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President Jon Coupal said statewide officials are expected to be in Sacramento when they take those jobs. He said the fact that Ma is the only official charging the state for her stays in Sacramento is notable.

“Taxpayers question the legitimacy of this practice,” Coupal said. “If you run for statewide office, you should be expected to maintain – at your own expense – a residence in Sacramento.”

Commuting practices

State travel reimbursement guidelines generally allow state workers to expense business trip costs when they travel more than 50 miles from their headquarters. However, the rules also forbid reimbursement for regular commuting.

“It is not unusual or extraordinary for state employees to commute 50 miles or longer from their home to headquarters and back again on a daily basis,” the state’s human resources manual says. “An employee who does not live in the immediate vicinity of his/her headquarters is not eligible to receive meals and lodging when required to work extended hours in the headquarters location. Likewise, an employee who must work at a site other than headquarters is not automatically considered to be eligible for meals and/or lodging simply by crossing the ‘50 mile line.’”

Although the manual provides general guidance around travel reimbursement, individual departments can still make their own rules, CalHR spokeswoman Camille Travis said.

During the period covered by the records The Sacramento Bee reviewed, Ma and Jopanda were technically based in San Francisco, where both women lived, which means they don’t appear to have violated the 50-mile guideline.

However, The Bee’s review found Jopanda spent more working days in Sacramento in 2019 than in San Francisco. State law defines a state employee’s headquarters as “the place where the officer or employee spends the largest portion of his/her regular workdays or working time” but also gives power to state department officials like Ma to set different rules for headquarters “in special situations.”

Ma’s office did not respond to questions about precisely how much time she and Jopanda spent in Sacramento versus San Francisco, but records show Jopanda spent at least 114 working days in Sacramento in 2019, nearly half of the working days in that year, excluding weekends and federal holidays.

Although the days she spent working from San Francisco are not specified in the expense records, Jopanda spent 56 days traveling to other cities, including Los Angeles and Washington D.C., leaving less than 81 days for work from San Francisco, the office where she was based.

In 2020, when state offices switched to largely remote work, Jopanda spent significantly less time in Sacramento and other cities, according to expense reports.

“Travel arrangements are made to maximize efficiency and minimize costs to taxpayers consistent with all ethical and legal requirements,” Jopanda said in a statement.

Expense reports show Ma spent at least 50 days working from Sacramento and 59 days working from other cities in 2019. In 2020, she spent at least 89 days in Sacramento.

When it comes to travel costs, the HR guidelines direct managers to “demonstrate that every consideration has been given to minimizing the cost to the state through responsible planning and scheduling.”

During her first two years in office Ma expensed $14,000 for Sacramento trips and nearly $12,000 for trips to other cities. During the same time period, Jopanda expensed $18,000 for trips to Sacramento and more than $12,000 for other trips.

The two women approved one another’s expense reports.

Both women frequently had the state cover their meals while in Sacramento. They also expensed commuting costs. Ma sometimes filed for mileage and parking cost reimbursement, while Jopanda expensed parking, car rental and electric vehicle charging.

On one three-day trip in April 2019, Jopanda expensed meals, but noted that she did not stay at a hotel and instead “commuted with state car each day.” On most trips, however, Jopanda and Ma stayed at hotels in Sacramento, including the Best Western, the Marriott and the Citizen.

Ma’s practice of sharing lodging with staff came under public scrutiny after a former employee filed a lawsuit in July accusing her of sexual harassment while the two women shared rooms in Sacramento on business trips. Ma has denied the allegations in the suit.

How other officials handle commuting costs

Many high-profile state officials and top staffers commute from the Bay Area regularly and don’t charge the state for it.

Former Alameda Assemblyman Rob Bonta has opted to drive back to his home in the Bay Area each night after Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed him attorney general earlier this year, California Justice Department spokeswoman Bethany Lesser said. His expense records contain no reimbursement requests for lodging in the capital city.

Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis lives in San Francisco, but doesn’t charge taxpayers for lodging in Sacramento.

Newsom’s former Chief of Staff Ann O’Leary was one of several top staffers in the governor’s office who regularly commuted from the Bay Area to her headquarters in the state Capitol. Expense reports for O’Leary show she didn’t expense any costs related to her commute like mileage, meals or lodging during her two years as Newsom’s lead aide.

In 2019, the Newsom administration said it had stopped paying officials to commute after a Sacramento Bee investigation revealed the state spent more than $21,000 in one year for a former Caltrans director to commute from San Diego to Sacramento.

The Bee found the state paid for former Caltrans director Laurie Berman’s flights and most of the rent for a Sacramento apartment, along with thousands of dollars more in Lyft rides, rental cars and meals.

After The Bee report, Newsom’s office informed state secretaries, undersecretaries and other officials that they must pay for their own travel if they choose to live somewhere other than where they work, according to the governor’s office.

As a duly elected statewide official, Ma does not report to the governor and isn’t required to follow rules he sets for the state workforce he oversees.

State lawmakers, who are required to live in their districts, are entitled to a “per diem” payment to cover commuting costs. Statewide officials, however, are not entitled to per diem payments.

Some top officials move to Sacramento when they assume statewide office. When Newsom became governor, he moved his family from Marin County to Fair Oaks. Travel expense reports show the governor does not expense any lodging costs in Sacramento.

Attorney General Xavier Becerra also moved to Sacramento when he was appointed to the job, Lesser said.

Controller Betty Yee lives in Alameda and has a second residence she maintains at her own expense in Sacramento, spokeswoman Monique Blue Langer said. Yee doesn’t expense meals and only seeks lodging reimbursement when she travels to events and meetings outside the Bay Area, Sacramento and Los Angeles.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, who lives in Richmond, submitted expenses for hotel costs in Sacramento twice — for one night each in February and March of 2019.

Update: This story has been updated to reflect a review of travel expense records for Superintendent Tony Thurmond.

This story was originally published October 18, 2021 at 5:00 AM.