State transportation officials have asked Panhandle Area Transit to repay $8,000 after an audit found its former manager profited by leasing to the agency land and a van he owned.
The Idaho Department of Transportation said Clyde Boatright should personally pay $4,400 of the amount for lease overcharges on an airport shuttle van he bought and then leased back to the nonprofit corporation.The remaining $3,600 was for disallowed interest expenses on a building improvement loan taken out for an office on property Boat-right owned but leased back to the agency.
"I don't think there's any intentional wrongdoing on my part," Boatright said. "We've offered to make payments to get this all straightened out. But nobody wants to settle this. They just want to talk about it."
The transit agency elected a new slate of directors last week after transportation officials concluded the former board's makeup could be a conflict of interest.
Two of the seven directors - Boatright was one - were transit employees and a third was related to an employee. Although not illegal, the situation creates a possible conflict of interest, Public Transportation Director Oz Reyna said from Boise.
The state audit also raised questions about Boatright's leasing a half-acre parcel he owned to the transit system for an office site.
"The problem foreseen in this lease arrangement is that the owner and actual tenant are one in the same," the report noted. "Hence, any decision to add improvements, exercise options, or make major repairs would easily be a benefit to the owner without the benefits of interjection from bipartisan interests."
Boatright said he has asked that the lease payments be temporarily halted until the issue is resolved and said he would be willing to sell the property to the transit agency.
No records could be found to indicate Boatright had state permission to build a P.A.T. office on the site when he obtained a $25,000 bank loan, the audit indicates.
Lease payments amounting to the loan's principle and interest were made to a bank on P.A.T. checks signed by Boatright, the audit concluded.
"This method of making mortgage payments is very questionable," the audit report concluded.
Reyna said Boatright decided to resign after he was shown the audit report. But Boatright denied that the audit had anything to do with his July 31 resignation.