Michigan housing chief runs up thousands in bills, expense records show

Michigan housing chief runs up thousands in bills, expense records show | Detroit Free Press | freep.com: "LANSING — The head of the state housing authority has rung up tens of thousands of dollars in expenses since taking office in 2012, dining on filet mignon, escargot and foie gras, staying in hotels that cost $400 to $500 a night, and traveling in a stretch limousine, records show.
Most — but not all — of the expenses have been paid by the state agency.
Officials who vet expense vouchers have rejected hundreds of dollars in reimbursements Scott Woosley has sought, such as a $47.60 “dinner” receipt from a Washington, D.C., bar for which the only items consumed were three glasses of 15-year-old El Dorado rum.
In June 2013, the state agency paid $1,253 for Woosley and other Michigan State Housing Development Authority officials to drive across Nebraska in a stretch limousine after a mix-up sent the state-owned plane they flew in to Omaha instead of Lincoln, where their meeting was to take place, according to the records obtained by the Michigan Democratic Party under the Freedom of Information Act.
Woosley, who is paid $135,000 a year, made no apologies for his expense vouchers in a telephone interview Wednesday, though he said any reimbursement requests he made for alcohol charges were unintentional. 
He said he generally submits the expenses he incurs believing the state will reimburse him for only those charges they deem appropriate.
“You can’t find a hotel in New York around the holidays that’s not four or five hundred a night,” Woosley told the Free Press."