KHOU 11 Investigates: The Plane Truth

Now for a story you'll see only on Khuu 11 news tonight. Khu 11 investigates a pricey perk for state employees and public officials. We're talking about flying around on a fleet of executive style jets. They're supposed to only be used for official state business and there are other rules as well. But is it all the travel above board? Here's investigative reporter Jeremy Rogowski, getting the records was not easy. The state agency that operates these planes tried to block their release not once or twice but three separate times. So we got station attorneys involved and it took 10 months to win the fight to shine a light on how your tax dollars are spent. A fleet of four speedy jets offers comfort and convenience. Unlike commercial airliners, these planes can fly direct to any airport in the state. And records show Texas officials hopped on hundreds of times the past few years for things like meetings, conferences or during a disaster. But who's watching out to make sure the flights are above board? Our focus is really flying these planes, not the agency that runs the program. The Texas Department of Transportation turns out it comes down to the honor system. So it's a responsibility of any requesting agency or person that's requesting these flights. Their responsibility to validate the state need for these flights. Is anybody watching over them to see if they're following the rules or not following the rules? Again, it's, it's their responsibility to validate the state need. That lack of oversight is a big red flag. I don't know that the honor system is good enough. In this case for the government watchdog group. Public citizen, Adrian Shelley is the nonprofit's Texas director. When there's an auto system that doesn't ask even the most fundamental questions. We've just got a system that is ripe for waste. Texas law spells out how state aircraft should be used like when the destination is not served by a commercial carrier or the flight is the most cost effective travel and passengers must fill out this travel log, citing a specific state purpose as taxpayers. It ought to be important to us to see that our dollars are being spent wisely but consider these flight costs. K 11 investigates discovered state Senator Charles Perry spent 3000 taxpayer dollars to go from A to Lubbock to accept an award. Texas A and M Chancellor John Sharp spent 2900 hours from College Station to Dallas and back the state's specific purpose, not specific at all or there's us Senator John Cornyn's flight from Baltimore to Austin $8500 all and the taxpayers, we're constantly updating you. And then there's Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, he conveniently lives near Hooks Airport in Northwest Harris County. We found three trips where Austin based pilots picked Patrick up at Hooks, flew him to Austin, flew back to drop him off at Hooks and then returned to the capital all on the same day. The average cost about $3500 if they're effectively using, uh, you know, a state plane as a, as a taxi, an air taxi at $7000 a pop. You know, I think it's fair to ask if that's the best use of state dollars. A spokesman for Lieutenant Governor Patrick told us he almost always travels by car to and from his Houston area home to Austin. He uses a state plane very sparingly for that trip and always for state business work in compliance with the law. But again, when it comes to ensuring compliance tech dot's Adam Hammond says that's left up to the passengers on board. Is anybody looking at these flights to see if they're above board? It is their responsibility to validate the state need. And if rules are broken, rules are broken, it's the responsibility of the requesting agency or person to validate the state need. You're going to keep answering my questions the same way. Correct. Our role is to fly the plane and that's what we continue to do. Now, there is a section in the law that says these flights are allowed if the time required to fly commercial interferes with the passenger's obligations. Experts we spoke with described this as a catch all way to justify taking one of these executive style jets even with a hefty price tag tonight. Kh 311 investigates looks into why some Texas politicians are flying on private jets and text dot owns four jets that are supposed to be used for official state business. But investigative reporter Jeremy Rogowski found some lawmakers using the travel perk or personal or political gain. We went through hundreds of flight logs and social media posts and found state leaders who flew to attend family graduations and one high profile lawmaker who took a trip and raised thousands for his own political campaign. Speaker of the Texas House, Dave P didn't tell the whole story when he hopped aboard a state jet. After a conference in Austin, we found he caught a college football game in Lubbock riding beautiful day for Rham versus Hookham and he held a political fundraiser pumping at least $37,000 into his campaign. The main concern here is that you would want just greater trans to the public beyond transparency. There's Texas law which says the state may not provide aircraft transportation to someone who has attended an event at which money is raised for private or political purposes. A public official should serve the public interest. Uh Professor Dan Ster is an expert on ethics and leadership. The ethical thing to do is to use public aircraft for public purposes and to follow these regulations. Phelan's office told us he always makes every good faith effort to remain in compliance with state law and ethics rules, but it's not just political. We found other flights that were more family affairs than official state business like state representative Jay Dean's trip for a meeting. It was a relative's high school graduation on Facebook. Dean posted so grateful to get home for my grandson. It was stunning to see this level of the blurring of the line between public and private. What's more Dean paid for the flight with campaign funds which cannot be spent for personal use. His office defended the trip saying taxpayers did not bear the travel costs and at the graduation, many constituents and local officials were on hand. This does not pass the sniff test something. Kgu political analyst, Brandon Rehouse doesn't buy there are always going to be other constituents around but the fact that he had family that was there, there's definitely a crossing of that line after the graduation. The flight log shows representative Dean rushed back to Austin the same night, why he and his colleagues were needed on the house floor the next day for an historic event, the impeachment proceedings of Attorney General Ken Paxton, but we found another Texas lawmaker who flew out of town on a state jet didn't make it be state rep, Cole Hefner said he was going on state business when he flew from Austin to Mount Pleasant that afternoon, the house will come to order. But oddly enough, the official record shows him on the house floor at 103 while he was still in the air. So how could he be in two places at once? I ask you if you're recording right now? We are ok. Hefner's office never gave us an explanation, but we found that supposed State business flight landed in time for his daughter's graduation. This was a historic impeachment vote. This was something where you wanted to have members on hand being on the ground was critical in this period. Perhaps that's why Representative Hefner tried to return to the Capitol. He's a registered pilot and records show Hefner's single engine plane took off from Mount Pleasant just after three o'clock and didn't arrive in Austin until 445 the same time as the impeachment vote. Given these records, there's simply no way he could have been there. But even more odd, the record shows Hefner did vote. So what gives take a look? Another lawmaker reaches over to Hefner's empty desk to cast his vote. Here it is again, Hefner is not there. So his colleague punches the button. This is called ghost voting, ghost voting Riding House says it's actually a common practice, but usually when lawmakers need to take a call or bathroom break and briefly step away the rules are clear that the person the member has to be in the building would ghost voting in European ever be acceptable for a vote of this importance. This was definitely the biggest vote of that session, if not the decade and to miss it is abdication of your duties period, period. Now, records show taxpayers paid for Hefner's state operated flight. The cost more than $1000 and back to speaker Dave Flan, a spokesperson told us his flight was paid by Texas Tech university donors. And while in Lubbock, the lawmaker discussed the university's legislative priorities. But again, the law says if you take a state plane and raise campaign funds on the trip, that is a no, no. Now that you've finished watching our investigation, we want to share with you a digital exclusive Jeremy's interview with tech dot spokesperson, Adam Hammonds during less than five minutes. Hammonds refused to answer many of Jeremy's questions directly. Instead he repeated the same two points over and over again. Can you educate my viewers why this fleet exists? What's its purpose? Yeah. So the purpose is to fulfill state business and to fly elected officials, state officials uh where they need to go throughout the state. It's a big state that is, and can you get into the rules, the D OS and don't of uh the use of these, these airplanes? Yeah. So our role is really to maintain and operate these planes. And so I'll defer to the statute 22 05 on that. So you can't explain the D's and don't, yeah, our focus really is on maintaining and operating these planes. Who would I ask to explain? What are the rules? Yeah. So it's a responsibility of any requesting agency or person that's requesting these flights is their responsibility to validate the state need for these flights. So it's the honor system is the responsibility of that requesting agency to validate the state need. Is anybody watching over them to see if they're following the rules or not following the rules? And again, it's, it's their responsibility to validate the state aid and that state statute. I appreciate that, but it's not. The question. Is anybody looking at these flights to see if they're above board, it is their responsibility to validate the state need. So I would defer to them as far as uh validating state statute 22 05. If nobody's watching, is that open the door for abuse? Our, our focus is really flying these planes, maintaining and operating them planes and making sure they get where they need to go safely and efficiently. And so that's what we're focused on. You're gonna keep answering my questions the same way. Correct. Our role is to fly the plane and that's what we continue to do. And if rules are broken, rules are broken, what happens when rules are broken it, it's the responsibility of the requesting agency or person to validate the state need. And if they don't, it is their responsibility to validate it. Has this agency ever taken action to your knowledge to say, hey XYZ agency or certain official, this is not a permissible use. Yeah, our role is really to serve the state officials and to maintain and operate the plane. We, we fly the plane and make sure it operates smoothly. Let me ask you something and please level with me, Adam, did your boss tell you to stick to these two talking points? And that's it. No, I our role really is to fly the plane and that, and that's it. But it's a legitimate question to say, who's minding the store, who's looking to see if the rules are followed and it doesn't appear anyone is sure. Uh, our focus really is just maintaining and operating these planes and that's it. And that's what we're continue to do.