State authorities are investigating West Virginia Corrections Commissioner Jim Rubenstein - and other high-ranking administrators at the agency's central office in Charleston - after auditors cited Rubenstein for taking state money for unauthorized travel expenses.
The Legislature's Commission on Special Investigations and Legislative Auditor's Office are both making "inquiries" into Rubenstein's expenses, according to a letter released Thursday by state auditors.
The letter - written by Rubenstein's boss, Joe Thornton, who heads the state Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety - refers to the ongoing investigations, but provides few details. The letter was included in the audit.
As corrections commissioner, Rubenstein oversees the day-to-day operation of all state prisons in West Virginia.
At a legislative meeting Thursday, auditors flagged Rubenstein for being improperly reimbursed for a March 2015 hotel stay in Charleston.
Rubenstein, who has an apartment in Charleston and works out the Division of Corrections' headquarters in the city, submitted a $138 hotel bill for reimbursement, but withdrew the request after Thornton's executive secretary questioned the expense.
Days later, Rubenstein had his deputy commissioner approve the reimbursement, and the state paid him for the hotel stay.
Thornton didn't find out about it until a year later.
"I was certainly caught off guard when you advised the request for reimbursement was, without my approval, in turn submitted directly to the state Auditor's Office for reimbursement, without my signatory approval," Thornton wrote last week to Denny Rhodes, who heads the state Legislative Post Audit Division.
Thornton added that state investigators were conducting "additional inquiries to determine whether or not this was a pattern, or if any additional matters would be revealed that require action."
Rubenstein did not return phone messages seeking comment Thursday.
In an email sent to Thornton's secretary last year, Rubenstein said he spent the night at a Charleston hotel because he planned to attend "Corrections Day" at the state Capitol, "plus water froze up in my apartment and I scurried."
Rubenstein, who was appointed corrections commissioner in 2001, also has a house in St. Marys, about 100 miles from Charleston.
Thornton's letter also references a Legislative Auditor's "draft report" about "unauthorized expense reimbursements" for other Division of Corrections employees based in Charleston.
"This office opted to wait on the results of all these investigations to determine the appropriate action to take," Thornton said in his May 11 letter.
An audit released Thursday revealed that Rubenstein's former deputy commissioner, who lives in Bridgeport but worked out of the central office in Charleston, was reimbursed for 40 stays at Charleston hotels between 2011 and 2015.
The hotel stays cost the state $4,400 - money that the corrections division failed to report as taxable income for the commissioner, according to the audit. The auditors concluded that the "travel expenses should have been reported as wages paid to the former deputy commissioner." The audit does not name the commissioner.
The corrections division is reviewing the hotel invoices, according to the agency's written response to the audit.
The audit also criticizes the Division of Corrections for failing to report Rubenstein's use of a state-owned vehicle as a fringe benefit for tax purposes. Rubenstein is one of five high-ranking corrections office employees authorized to take home and commute to work in a state vehicle. The corrections division also calculated incorrectly the taxable income for the other administrators, according to the audit.
Thornton's secretary referred questions Thursday to department spokesman Lawrence Messina, who declined to elaborate on the audit.
"The materials presented by the Legislative Auditor speak for themselves," Messina said in an email.
The legislative audit also cited the corrections division for failing to adequately monitor the 270 state vehicles in the agency's fleet. The division did not require employees to submit mileage logs to the office's fleet coordinator.
Reach Eric Eyre at
ericeyre@wvgazettemail.com,
304-348-4869 or follow
@ericeyre on Twitter.