Nov. 10: MnDOT official fired over improper trips

The Minnesota Department of Transportation emergency response executive who failed to return to the state for 10 days after the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed was fired Friday for taking unauthorized trips, making excessive personal calls on her MnDOT cell phone and bringing embarrassment to the state.

Sonia Kay Morphew Pitt, who has been MnDOT's director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management since 2003, has been on paid leave since early September.

Pitt has the right to appeal her firing. To do so, she would have to respond to a voluminous investigative report by MnDOT that details a state-paid vacation flight to Las Vegas, unauthorized flights to Washington, D.C., and a finding that she made frequent, lengthy personal calls to a male friend at the Federal Highway Administration on her MnDOT cell phone during work hours.

The investigation found that there was no work-related reason for her to be in Washington, D.C., for 13 days before and after I-35W bridge collapsed on Aug. 1, killing 13 people.

In the days after the collapse, the investigation also found that she spent more time on the phone with Daniel Ferezan, her friend at the highway administration, than on work-related communications.

Staying away from crisis

Kevin Hanretta, who was at a conference with Pitt when the bridge collapsed, told MnDOT's investigator that Pitt was torn between staying on the East Coast and returning to Minnesota. Hanretta told the investigator that Pitt decided to stay put because her staff was "doing a great job" and she was comfortable directing them from afar.

But MnDOT's report said that while Pitt claimed that she was in "near constant telephone and e-mail communication with her staff" during the crisis, she actually spent slightly more time on the phone with Ferezan than she did in work-related communications.

The report said that Pitt and Ferezan, the highway administration's program manager for transportation security, were on the phone 31 times in the first three days of the bridge crisis for a total of 149 minutes. In that same period, Pitt made 46 work calls to MnDOT contacts for a total of 131 minutes.

Of the 32 e-mails she sent and received in those three days, only 12 were related to the bridge collapse, according to the report.

One e-mail from Ferezan to Pitt was made on Aug. 2, while rescue workers back in Minneapolis were still struggling to recover bodies from the currents of the Mississippi River. The e-mail had a subject heading of "FW: Immediate Inspection of Deck Truss Bridges." In the text, Ferezan wrote: "FYI: How's the clam bake?"

At the time, Pitt was at Harvard University, where she was attending a three-day emergency preparedness course approved by her MnDOT superiors.

Also attending the management course was Lisa Dressler, the public works interagency coordinator for the City of Minneapolis. Dressler's superiors directed her to return to Minneapolis, and she did so within 24 hours, the report said.

But Pitt, 43, of Red Wing, received no such call. After finishing the course at Harvard, she flew to Washington and found an office to work in at the federal highway administration. But the administration's emergency coordinator, Jesse Johnson, had no idea she was there when he sent her an e-mail on Aug. 5, the report said.

MnDOT's report said it is difficult to gauge the exact amount of time Pitt spent working during her post-Harvard stay in Washington from Aug. 3-11, but she filed for her regular pay plus several hours of overtime. MnDOT had not authorized any time in Washington either before or after the Harvard trip, the report said.

On the night before Pitt was to fly back to Minnesota, a shuttle service sent her a confirmation e-mail detailing where the driver would pick her up. The shuttle would pick her up at 6 a.m. at an address listed as Ferezan's residence, according to the e-mail and a review by the newspaper of Ferezan's prior addresses.

Documents show that Ferezan and Pitt met in mid-September 2006 at an infrastructure security conference in Orlando, Fla. Ferezan, 61, who lives in suburban Washington D.C., has some responsibilities for emergency coordination related to transportation security.

Ferezan and Pitt told the investigator in separate interviews that they began a "professional relationship focused on information sharing related to transportation security and emergency preparedness efforts," according to the investigator's report.

Pitt has worked for the state for 15 years, mostly in communications. In 2003, MnDOT created the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, which Pitt was hired to run.

Neither Pitt nor Ferezan has returned numerous phone calls from the Star Tribune seeking comment.

Reimbursement possible

Documents said Pitt received $850 in work-related expenses during those two Washington trips, a trip to Washington in June 2007 and a trip to Las Vegas on June 8, although she was not working at any of those times. In addition, Pitt added $600 to the cost of her travel by customizing an itinerary to suit her non-business purposes, documents said.

Pitt also ran up more than $600 in cell phone overcharges for personal calls on her MnDOT cell phone and $120 in airline seating upgrades that were in violation of MnDOT's travel policy. Documents show that her actions cost taxpayers more than $2,170.

State Legislative Auditor James Nobles said Thursday he may seek reimbursement from Pitt, and he also might seek criminal charges.

Between February 2007 and June 2007, she overran her allotment of cell phone minutes by 2,429 minutes. The report estimated that 90 percent of the calls during peak business hours were personal.

Most of the calls were to three different phone numbers. Two of the numbers belonged to Ferezan, and of the 2,660 minutes tracked by the investigator, 2,132 minutes -- or more than 35 hours -- were to him.

In MnDOT's termination letter to Pitt, Division Director Robert Winter wrote that the investigation found Pitt's conduct unbecoming to the agency and said it undermined the public trust in the department.

In late August, when her boss at MnDOT questioned her about weekend hours for which she charged the agency, Pitt replied by e-mail:

"I do not mind being accountable for my time and actions, however, I am not sure why you are making an issue out of this," she wrote to her boss. "I feel I am one of the most productive, dedicated employees at Mn/DOT. I take my job seriously, have high expectations of myself and those who work with me on these efforts. I am good at my job and certainly have never misused the time or resources. Obviously, you have a trust issue with me.'"

tonyk@startribune.com • 612-673-4213 pmcenroe@startribune.com • 612-673-1745