UF senior staff have racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel expenses after Sasse allowed them to work remotely

The University of Florida spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on travel expenses for highly paid Republican staffers of then-President Ben Sasse. Sasse allowed them to work from homes in other states but regularly commuted to the university's campus, newly released documents show.

The new figures add to growing questions about unusually high spending by the university president's office of public funds leading up to Sasse's unexpected resignation last month. More than half of the $211,824 in individual expenses attributed to six of his senior UF staffers who worked from home for 17 months was for plane or train tickets, plus nearly $50,000 more for hotels.

The costs included all of their work-related travel, not just round-trip travel from their home states — including Nebraska, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia — to UF. The university ultimately turned over more than 1,500 line items for those employees' expenses in response to requests made July 30 under Florida's public records law.

More than half of the travel expenses were specifically for campus visits. Others did not always specify a destination and listed the cost for “travel” without providing further details about the location.

In the documents provided by UF, the accommodation costs did not specify whether employees stayed in budget hotels from well-known chains or in luxury suites. Most rooms appeared to cost $150 or $300 a night. The meal costs did not specify the name or type of restaurant, nor whether employees ate alone.

The itemized expenses include a nearly $3,300 plane ticket to San Francisco for a three-day trip in January, $450.26 for a dinner during a three-day campus visit in April, $90.90 for a lunch in April, $266 for a one-day car rental in October and $1.78 for a four-mile private car trip in September. It was not immediately clear who at UF approved each expense.

University professors and administrators are not allowed to spend more than $19 on dinner and $11 on lunch, and travel reimbursement is 44.5 cents per mile. If they are entertaining donors or potential donors, they can spend more on meals, but the university urges them to “still stick as closely as possible to the allowable limits.”

Sasse, the former Republican senator from Nebraska, said in a statement on social media earlier this month that there had been inappropriate spending in the president's office: “That is not true.”

“Fiscal responsibility is a fundamental obligation of public institutions – and also because our alumni, donors and hard-working taxpayers should be able to trust that such responsibility and oversight has been and will be exercised,” Sasse wrote. “It will be.”

Early in his tenure as UF president, Sasse told professors in closed sessions that he realized it would be difficult to attract top talent to Gainesville, a college town of about 200,000 in an area of ​​Florida known as the “swamp” for its wet, rainy weather. He proposed more distance learning, opening new campuses outside Gainesville and using technology to overcome what he described as “traditional notions of place- and time-bound instruction.”

Gainesville has limited entertainment options, a municipal airport with few direct flights, a surprisingly high violent crime rate, and one of the most expensive utility costs in Florida. It is 90 minutes from Florida's popular coastal beaches.

A spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis, Bryan Griffin, said the governor's office contacted the State University System and its Board of Governors, which oversees Florida's public universities, earlier this month to investigate Sasse's spending of state funds. State treasurer Jimmy Patronis also asked the same agency to investigate Sasse's spending and said his office would assist with the audit.

In a possible sign of concerns about spending, UF has announced that going forward, all expenses paid from the Office of the University President will be audited twice a year and presented to the school's Board of Trustees in an official report.

UF also announced this week that since Sasse's resignation, it had fired four of the six employees whose travel records it had provided and a fifth had resigned.

In addition, at least one other high-profile Republican appointee appointed by Sasse was fired: Penny Schwinn, who was allowed to work from her home in Tennessee as vice president for K-12 education for a salary of $367,500. When she was fired, she was paid three months' salary, or about $92,000, effective July 31. Schwinn was the former Republican secretary of education for Tennessee.

Also fired was Taylor Sliva, assistant vice president for presidential communications and public affairs, who made $255,000 and received $15,000 to move to Gainesville. Sliva was Sasse's former Senate press secretary. Most professors hired at UF are reimbursed up to $5,000 in moving expenses. UF agreed to pay him three months' salary, or about $64,000, when it fired him, effective Aug. 5. Sliva had been renting a three-bedroom home in Gainesville and still owns a home in Nebraska, according to property records.

The other employees who spent $211,824 on travel were:

• Raymond Sass was hired as UF's first vice president for innovation and partnerships at a salary of $396,000 and works from his home in Maryland. Sass was Sasse's former chief of staff when the latter was a U.S. senator from Nebraska. He resigned on Aug. 2, according to documents obtained by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications. “While it is difficult to step down, I believe now is the right time for me to explore new challenges and opportunities,” he wrote. Sass spent at least $63,917 on travel expenses during a three-day campus visit last month, including nearly $1,800 for flights, hotel, rental car, parking, mileage and meals.

• James Wegmann, who previously served as Sasse's communications director during his time in the Senate, still works from Washington as vice president for communications. Wegmann spent at least $41,594 on travel, including at least $20,573 on airline tickets, and is paid $432,000.

• Alice James Burns, director of presidential relations and major events, previously worked for Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina. Burns was paid $206,000 and worked out of Washington, D.C. When she was laid off on Aug. 1, UF agreed to pay her three months' salary, or about $52,000. She spent at least $34,179 on travel, including $14,640 on flights and nearly $13,000 on hotels.

• Kari Ridder, who was hired as an adviser to Sasse and previously worked for Sasse in the Senate as state policy director, was paid $122,400 while living in Nebraska. UF fired Ridder on July 31, the same day Sasse quit, telling her she would continue to be paid through Nov. 1 and would work from home the entire time. She spent at least $17,151 on travel, including $8,637 on airline tickets.

• Kelicia Rice was hired at UF as an adviser to Sasse, earning $138,000 while working from her home in Virginia. She previously worked as a scheduler for Sasse when he was a senator. UF fired her on Aug. 1, effective Nov. 1, and told her she would continue to be paid to work remotely during her final three months. She spent at least $10,652 on travel, including $5,441 on plane tickets.

• Raven Shirley, who lives in Washington, D.C., was hired at UF as Sasse's senior assistant and received a salary of $126,000. She previously served as Sasse's operations manager in the Senate. UF fired her effective August 1 and agreed to pay her three months' salary, or about $31,500. Shirley spent at least $22,230 on travel and booked another $22,102 in travel expenses on behalf of others, including Sasse, Rice, Ridder, Sliva and Wegmann.

Sasse, 52, cited a recent epilepsy diagnosis and new memory problems for his wife, Melissa, who suffered an aneurysm and several strokes in 2007 as reasons for his resignation. He also said he wanted to spend more time with his children, including his college-age daughters and 13-year-old son.

Sasse was hired 17 months earlier and received a base salary of $1 million plus a performance bonus of up to $150,000 a year, guaranteeing his job until at least February 2028. The same contract called for Sasse to resign with six months' notice unless the chairman of the board of trustees, Mori Hosseini, waived that clause.

Sasse has stated that his family will remain in Gainesville and that he will serve as president emeritus and teach as a professor at the university. As president, Sasse and his family will live in a gated, multimillion-dollar mansion on campus next to the law school.

Sasse must vacate the presidential mansion by Sept. 30. According to a contract addendum dated July 18, the day Sasse publicly announced his retirement, UF has agreed to continue paying Sasse a base salary of just over $1 million through February 2028 and to provide him with medical, dental, life and disability insurance benefits.

Sasse's salary through 2028 was similar to what UF paid its previous president, Kent Fuchs, since he stepped down in 2023 after eight years. Fuchs, who has taught engineering students, has agreed to serve as interim president through July 31 of next year. UF said it would pay him a base salary of $1 million as interim president, plus a bonus of up to 15 percent, and establish a $5 million endowed professorship at the engineering school in his name.

Following Sasse's resignation, UF also announced that it would rehire Joseph Glover as provost, the school's top academic official. Glover resigned in April to become provost at the University of Arizona. His new contract with UF pays him $672,000 plus a $50,000 signing bonus.

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This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at [email protected].