AMES, Iowa (AP) - Iowa State University released revised information Thursday about President Steven Leath’s use of a university airplane to travel to personal medical appointments in Minnesota, amid a continuing state investigation into his flights.
Leath announced last month that he was reimbursing the university $3,800 for using the plane to attend doctors’ visits at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Leath didn’t specify then which of his numerous trips to Rochester the reimbursement covered, but his spokeswoman Megan Landolt said at the time that they involved flights in July 2015.
Landolt said Thursday that date was incorrect and apologized for releasing inaccurate information. Instead, Landolt said that Leath’s reimbursement covered three roundtrip flights in which university pilots took Leath to two medical appointments in Rochester in October 2015 and March 2016.
A Division of Criminal Investigation spokesman said that it continues to investigate Iowa State’s flights. State law bars the use of public assets for private purposes or gain.
In the revised information released Thursday, Landolt said that Leath’s reimbursement didn’t include several flights to Rochester in July 2015 in the days after Leath and his wife were involved in an accident in the university’s smaller airplane while returning home from vacation. Leath, a pilot, has said that they were not injured when he landed hard in windy conditions while stopping to refuel in Bloomington, Illinois.
Landolt said the business purposes of the July 20, July 23, July 29 and July 30 flights between Ames and Rochester were to take Leath to and from visits with donors and potential donors. She said that the trips also involved medical appointments but that they had nothing to do with the hard landing. She said that Leath was dropped off July 20 and picked up July 23, and that university records showing separate roundtrip flights to Rochester on those dates were inaccurate.
The Board of Regents audit found that university planes had taken Leath to Rochester seven times since 2013. The city’s 180 miles from the Iowa State University campus, or a three-hour drive. Each roundtrip involved two university pilots and cost donors $1,265.
Auditors recommended the board determine whether the flights for medical visits were allowable. They noted that Leath’s contract doesn’t require him to undergo annual medical evaluations, as the university had earlier incorrectly claimed.
Leath said that he believed the use of the plane was appropriate for doctors’ visits “because I had to get back to Ames for important university commitments.” Leath, who receives a $1,500 monthly car allowance, said after the audit he decided he would “feel more comfortable if I paid for those flights myself.”
Leath also reimbursed for 52 flights that were for his personal flight training and for transporting his brother and sister-in-law to an NCAA tournament basketball game. He’s also paid back costs of damaging the airplane in the accident and personal trips to his North Carolina home.
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