Records: OK taxpayers paid thousands for Supt. Walters to attend various events, including movie premiere
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Records indicate State Superintendent Ryan Walters received reimbursements totaling over $4000 in taxpayer money for attending out-of-state partisan conferences, right-wing talk shows and even a movie premiere during his first year in office.
Walters’ 2023 travel and expense records, first reported by The Frontier, indicate Walters has been able to submit and approve his own expense reports in his role as the head of Oklahoma’s State Department of Education.
“A lot of his travel was, you know, for purposes that I think it would be hard to say that it was in support of a core function of the agency,” said Brianna Bailey, who first reported the findings in her role as Managing Editor for The Frontier, a non-profit news outlet. “Because he’s the head of the State Department of Education, the travel forms that he had to sign asked for a manager department or head’s approval, and he signed them for himself.”
The records, obtained by News 4, indicate Walters made several trips out of Oklahoma beginning with a trip to the Dallas area in April 2023.
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Expense records show Walters got reimbursed for his stay at a hotel in Frisco, as well as mileage to and from addresses in Irving and Plano.
Walters listed “meetings with stakeholders in Dallas, TX” as the “nature of business” for all of the stops he made on that trip.
However, The Frontier reported Walters made the visit to Irving to record a podcast with conservative commentator Glenn Beck and made the stop in Plano to attend a premiere for the movie ‘Nefarious.’
“It was filmed in Oklahoma City,” Bailey said. “It’s a horror movie that kind of has an anti-abortion message.”
Records obtained by News 4 show, also in April 2023, Walters was reimbursed more than $1,100 for attending and speaking at a conference for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, at the Gaylord National Resort in Maryland.
In June 2023, records show Walters approved more than $1,000 in airfare expenses for himself on a trip he took to Philadelphia to speak at a national Joyful Warriors conference hosted by the group Moms for Liberty.
In July, Walters received more than $500 in reimbursement for a trip he took to Denver, where he was the keynote speaker at The Teacher Freedom Summit presented by the Freedom Foundation, according to records News 4 obtained.
The agenda for the summit included a session in which attendees discussed “alternatives to unions such as American Educators or Christian Educators.”
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The summit also included breakout sessions discussing how to sue teachers’ unions.
Another session titled “Is woke curriculum overtaking your subject” included a panel discussion “with policymakers from around the country.”
Records show Walters also approved reimbursements of more than $1,000 for expenses on a trip he made to Washington D.C. in August.
Walters listed “attending policy meetings in DC” as the “nature of business” on his expense forms.
But his trip agenda, obtained by News 4, includes items like a meeting “to discuss national media opportunities” with a person who books guests for Fox News.
The agenda also included private meeting “to discuss school choice policy” with the director of Heritage Foundation’s education policy center.
After that meeting, the agenda says Walters taped an appearance on a talk show hosted by the Heritage Foundation’s President, Kevin Roberts.
The next day of the trip, Walters’ agenda shows he taped another interview for a talk show called The Capitol Report, as well as another taped interview with far-right outlet The Epoch Times.
“It tells me that Ryan Walters is not working for Oklahomans,” said State Senator Wendy Boren (D-Norman), who first requested the expense documents from the Oklahoma State Department of Education. “He’s working for a political narrative, national political narrative, a national political machine. It’s clearly a partisan, political and a very narrow partisan, political agenda that many people within the Republican Party don’t even agree with.”
Boren, who serves on the Oklahoma Senate’s Education Appropriations and Budget Subcommittee, says she believes Walters’ out-of-state-travel expenses violate an executive order signed by Governor Kevin Stitt several years ago.
“The governor put a moratorium on out-of-state travel in 2019,” Boren said.
On Friday, News 4 asked Governor Stitt’s office if the governor knew about Walters’ out-of-state-expenses.
“Superintendent Walters is a separately elected official, so he did not seek permission from the Governor’s office,” said Governor Stitt’s Communications Director Abegail Cave. “Governor Stitt thinks all elected officials and government employees should be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”
When News 4 reached out to Walters’ office on Friday, Walters’ spokesperson Dan Issett said he believes Walters has been more fiscally responsible than any previous State Superintendent when it comes to out-of-state travel expenses, and he would be releasing documents and evidence to back up his belief this coming Monday.
In the meantime, Issett left News 4 with the following statement in response to the Frontier’s original report:
“Oklahomans are not surprised or fooled by another attack and fake controversy from the liberal media. Superintendent Walters will never stop leading Oklahoma and the nation to reform our schools, get back to basics, and improve student academic outcomes. There is a story to be told and travel throughout Oklahoma and around the country is a normal part of the duties of any statewide office holder. Superintendent Walters continues to meticulously protect Oklahoma taxpayers from the wasteful spending we’ve seen under previous administrations.”
Dan Issett, spokesperson for State Superintendent Ryan Walters
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