Florida International University President Modesto 'Mitch' Maidique said he'll change his travel practices after a review by The Miami Herald raised questions about some of his expenses.

BY NOAH BIERMAN

One summer day in 2004, the president of Miami-Dade County's only public university traveled to state Sen. Ken Pruitt's office in Port St. Lucie to lobby for more school funding.

Instead of using his state-issued Buick for the 2 ½-hour drive, Florida International University President Modesto ''Mitch'' Maidique chartered a private plane. Then, for the 13 miles between the St. Lucie County airport and Pruitt's office, he hired a chauffeured ``Diamond Limousine.''

Total cost of the trip: $1,616. Total travel time each way, according to his itinerary: two hours, 15 minutes.

It wasn't the first or last time Maidique traveled in style. Over the past four years, he has spent thousands of FIU's dollars on private planes, limousine services and guest rooms at some of the world's most luxurious hotels, according to a Miami Herald analysis of his travel records.

''The opportunity cost of my time is very high,'' Maidique said. Using limos, for example, ``is not a policy of comfort. It's a policy of maximizing my effectiveness.''

But his travel style contrasts with his constant assertion that the young university is underfunded and that he needs to ``look for a dollar under every rock.''

Maidique's travels are allowed under his contract, with few limits. His contract grants him an extra $25,000 a year from FIU's private foundation to cover expenses not reimbursable from state tax dollars -- not uncommon among Florida state university presidents.

Over the past four years, records show, he has stayed at The Plaza in New York, the St. Regis in Washington and the Ritz in Madrid -- where his taxi bill ran more than $1,000. He has taken a 14-hour limo ride in Connecticut and a four-day trip to Paris that cost $6,700.

''New York, Paris, London -- even when you get a reasonable hotel -- it'll cost $400,'' he said.

Even when he travels commercially, it's rarely cheap. The average price for 13 round-trip tickets to Washington, D.C., during that period: $1,409. Paying full coach fare, Maidique said, ensures maximum flexibility in case he needs to change plans at the last minute.

''We typically don't use economy flights because too many times we've lost a ticket,'' he said during an interview Wednesday.

State travel regulations bar using tax dollars for first-class airfares. But with the full coach tickets, Maidique is able to upgrade often.

Maidique is the only FIU employee who can authorize his own travel, but the board of trustees now plans to audit him every six months.

Last week, one day before an interview with The Miami Herald, Maidique decided to reimburse the school $2,950 for ``cases in which the line between personal and university [business] was not clear.''

He said he relies on his staff to handle his billing and does not review most travel expenses before allowing them to be signed electronically. But that practice will change, he said.

''As a consequence of this review, we will probably establish much stricter guidelines, not so much because it is material, but because of the perception that it can leave,'' Maidique said.

Maidique, 65, said he plans to review his own travel before personally signing expense reports and ask his staff to schedule cheaper flights when his schedule allows.

''I reached the conclusion that we need to have policies that we don't have now,'' he said. From now on, he will instruct his staff ''to err on the side of being conservative'' in separating his personal and professional expenses, he said.

SOURCES OF MONEY

Maidique's travel money generally comes from a combination of state tax dollars and foundation money raised from donors and influential FIU boosters. Maidique spent about $80,000 in state money and $60,000 in foundation money during the four-year period reviewed by The Miami Herald.

Foundation dollars are supposed to be used to benefit the public university, but have far less scrutiny than taxpayer dollars in how they are spent.

(The Miami Herald's publisher, Jesus Diaz Jr., chairs the FIU Foundation's audit committee and has sat on its board since September 2003.)

For nearly 20 years, Maidique has overseen the transformation of FIU from a small commuter school into a large research university with a full complement of graduate programs. Other state university presidents in Florida enjoy similar perks -- for example, the University of Florida's Bernie Machen has access to two private planes owned by the school's athletic association.

But FIU is still scrappy by necessity, with an endowment far smaller than that of most older research universities. Money is also tight for its 37,000 students, 59 percent of whom depend on financial aid.

Given that, some of Maidique's expenses raise questions:

• In 2003, for a lunch meeting at former FIU board chairman Armando Codina's Connecticut summer home, Maidique spent $474 for a night at the Four Seasons Pierre, a five-star hotel in Manhattan.

Then he contracted a limousine service for 14 hours, 15 minutes, charging $1,248 to the foundation. Maidique said that Codina's house is in this ''absolutely unknown'' place, so he hired a Connecticut driver and paid for the time it took to make two round trips.

In all, the luncheon, to discuss a proposed medical school and other FIU projects, cost $2,678 -- half paid by taxpayer dollars, half by foundation money.

''There's a big difference in speaking to someone on the telephone and speaking to someone in person,'' Maidique said. He said Codina, a prominent Miami developer and million-dollar FIU donor, is among his most important advisors.

• Since 2002, Maidique has taken 14 trips on private planes charged to the foundation, including the inaugurations of UF's president in Gainesville ($3,133) and the University of West Florida president in Pensacola ($2,654). On another trip, when bad weather interrupted a commercial flight back to Miami, Maidique and a staffer chartered a plane from Orlando for $1,068.

Maidique said the private planes save time and are used by staff members and VIPs who support the school financially. Increasingly, he said, he flies free on the jet of board of trustees member and developer Sergio Pino.

• Three nights in Madrid for a January 2003 signing ceremony for an FIU research center cost $5,128. The Ritz cost $445 a night; state rules capped Maidique at $151 a night, so the foundation picked up the rest. The state covered a $1,030 taxi bill, four days' worth of trips.

''That was not good judgment,'' admitted Maidique, who reimbursed FIU for the cab fare on Tuesday.

R. Kirk Landon, an FIU trustee who chairs the FIU audit committee, said he was surprised to learn late last year that Maidique's travel expenses were not audited regularly. From now on, his committee plans audits every six months.

''Nobody in the world is supposed to sign off on his own travel,'' said Landon, a philanthropist and retired chairman and chief executive officer of American Bankers Insurance Group. ``I'm [also] chairman of the audit committee of Lennar, and believe me, we check [President] Stuart Miller's travel.''

Trustee Chairman David Parker said he's not surprised at the overall cost of travel ``for a person who's trying to build a major university.''

Maidique says travel is an important part of his job. ''Often I am investing money to look for money under the rock,'' he said.

At the 2004 meeting in Pruitt's office, which lasted about an hour, Maidique argued that the Legislature was not providing the amount that state budget formulas say is necessary to fully serve the needs of FIU's student body, said Pruitt, a key figure in state budgets for more than a decade.

FUNDRAISING ROLE

Maidique said his time is valuable because he is responsible for raising tens of millions of dollars and needs to woo influential people to do so. Few dispute that university presidents must travel frequently to raise money.

In 2004, Maidique traveled to China to expand the FIU hospitality school's reach in a deal with the Chinese government that will make millions for the school and raise its international profile. Maidique combined the trip with personal business on behalf of the National Semiconductor corporate board -- saving the university the cost of a plane ticket in the process.

Still, overall perception matters when traveling on public business, said Steven Uhlfelder, a Tallahassee lawyer who has served on a number of state university boards over the years.

''What do the people that pay the bills think?'' said Uhlfelder, who added that he considers Maidique honorable. ``I'm not saying he did anything wrong. But the way I look at travel, first you should look at public transportation, airplanes.''

But, he added, ``whether it's foundation money or state money, how would it read on the front page?''

Miami Herald staff writers Scott Hiaasen and Gary Fine- out contributed to this report.