Schools ex-director broke credit card policies

Metro Schools employees have rules they must follow when using taxpayer-backed credit cards. Their former boss, Pedro Garcia, often broke them.

Garcia regularly violated purchasing card policies by exceeding limits on tips and travel allowances, as well as failing to turn in proper receipts.

The former director, who left the district in January 2008 and is now a professor at the University of Southern California, did not return calls for comment. A review of months' of credit card statements found several questionable expenses by the former schools chief.

Garcia was the third-highest-paid public employee in Nashville, earning $216,000 annually. On top of that, he used taxpayer dollars to buy a $600 iPhone and dine out at restaurants like J. Alexander's and Sunset Grill. School officials said the director returned the iPhone when he quit.

Garcia also liked to eat well when he traveled. Records show that on a trip to New York for a conference, Garcia and top assistant Sandra Tinnon, who still works for the district, had a $122 lunch at the upscale Central Park restaurant Tavern on the Green. The two dined on chicken and salmon, and capped the meal off with desserts of cheesecake and crème brûlée.

For dinner, Garcia took Tinnon and her spouse to a $195 dinner at Victor's Cafe, and then stayed at the $379-a-night Millennium Hilton, where the event was being held. The original expense claim for Victor's indicated Garcia's wife was also at dinner, but Garcia said in an e-mailed response that she was not present on the trip.

"I have no idea what the district document indicate," he wrote. "All I know is my wife did not go to NYC and was not on the trip and Mr. Tinnon was."

Sandra Tinnon, through a school district spokeswoman, said Garcia offered to pay for the meal, but she did not know it was purchased with a district credit card. Tinnon's husband is a school employee but was not approved to attend the conference.
Online shopping

Garcia also used his district credit card to shop online at Amazon.com for what appear to be a series of religious-themed books titled Expository Sermons on the Book of Revelation.

Director Jesse Register, who was hired in January to replace Garcia, does not have a district credit card, though his secretary does and makes occasional charges on his behalf. Register has ordered a top-to-bottom review of business practices in the district. He said axing the purchasing card program may be one way to control spending.