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Burton, 70,
agreed to make restitution of $4,503 for a personal 11-day European trip he took at
university expense last year. He will serve 18 months probation and carry out community
service.
As
WW reported last summer, Burton abruptly resigned in the summer of 2011 in
front of a scathing Oregon University System audit that uncovered his use of
PSU funds to cover what amounted to a vacation trip.
Burton served in the Legislature and as the top executive of the Metro regional
government before taking a job at Portland State in 2003.
He told PSU officials he was going
to attend professional conferences but those conferences were either fictional
or not taking place while Burton was in Europe. The university subsequently
referred the case to the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. Before the Ethics
Commission investigated, however, Multnomah County District Attorney opened a
criminal investigation, which took precedence over the ethics probe.
That criminal investigation was somewhat unusual—Portland State did not request it, saying that since Burton agree to pay the money back, the university was satisfied.
And
in a state where misdeeds often seem to go unpunished, nobody would have been
terribly surprised if criminal investigation ended quietly.
But a chastened Burton appeared in court this afternoon and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. In addition to probation, Burton must do 40 hours of community service, write an apology and must seek court approval for any future public employment.
Updated at 3:44 pm:
The two lawyers who led the criminal investigation into Burton's travel, Gary Meabe, a senior deputy district attorney for Multnomah County and Andrew Campbell, a senior assistant attorney general, jointly wrote a letter (PDF) to their bosses expressing concerns about Portland State's travel reimbursement policies that went beyond the scope of their investigation. (The travel office at PSU handles an average of 775 reimbursements worth $316,300 monthly, according to a recent audit).
"We remain concerned about issues that came to light during the course of this investigation and whether adequate controls and procedures exist," the lawyers wrote to District Attorney Mike Schrunk and Deputy Attorney General Mary Williams on May 14.
"A system that both requires a much more substantial business purpose justification and reliable proof that those purposes are authentic would act as a deterrent to abuse."
Portland State spokesman Scott Gallagher provided the following response via email:
WWeek 2015