The Houston Independent School District will no longer use a travel agency to book individual flights, according to a top district finance official.

HISD Chief Financial Officer Melinda Garrett said the Houston district would book flights through local travel agency, Advantage Travel, only when large groups of students need flights -- yet the new district travel policy put in place just this month does not include any policy or rules against an employee using a travel agency to book a flight.

Garrett said there does not need to be a specific policy against it because she is keeping an eye on when HISD uses the firm.

“I receive a report weekly on the use of the travel agency and am monitoring it closely,” Garrett said in an e-mail. Since Aug. 31, “no trips were booked through Advantage,” she said.

In June, after searching through thousands of HISD travel records obtained under the Texas Public Information Act, Texas Watchdog learned that poor planning, the use of Advantage Travel and a lenient travel policy were costing HISD and taxpayers thousands of dollars.

HISD pays $30 service fees to the Houston-based firm for employee and student flights despite having two full-time travel service reps who each earn more than $50,000 annually. The service fees represent about 4% of HISD’s annual travel costs.

“I have restricted the use of Advantage Travel to student travel only where groups are going or for employees with complicated itineraries,” Garrett said in an e-mail to Texas Watchdog last week.

Using the agency for large groups and students is beneficial to HISD, she said, because the firm allows the school district to substitute people on a flight if someone cancels at the last minute.

A recent investigation by Texas Watchdog shows that HISD was not the only local government agency using Advantage Travel. The City of Houston was paying $35-a-flight surcharges and has also adopted a new travel policy.

While the city’s new policy specifically bans the use of travel agencies, HISD’s does not.

One revision in the new travel policy is the use of the district’s new titles for administrative positions that were renamed in a district-wide reorganization late last year.

Do you think the new HISD travel policy is strict enough? Should the district continue to use Advantage Travel for student and group travel? Let us know what you think. Contact Lynn Walsh at Lynn@TexasWatchdog.org, 713-228-2850 or on Twitter: @LWalsh.

Photo of plane in sky from flickr user ell brown, used via a Creative Commons license.