Alize Asberry Payne Slept (Ate and Ubered) Here: County DEI Dir. Charged $115K to County Credit Card

By The Ann Arbor Independent Editorial Team Last updated Aug 12, 2024

by P.D. Lesko

County records revealed that between 2022-2023, Alize Asberry Payne charged $115,000 to the credit card given to her by Washtenaw County. Along with trips, workshops, conferences, and a $3,700 payment to the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, she also spent $3,746 to purchase tables at the annual Black and Gold Gala ball. Taxpayers footed the bill for County Administrator Greg Dill, his assistant Crystal Campbell and County Commissioners Justin Hodge, Caroline Sanders and Crystal Lyte to attend the 6-11 p.m. event that included cocktails, live music and dancing.

In 2023, Alize Asberry Payne was paid $147,235.66, according to County records. She was hired as the County’s first “racial equity” officer in 2019, and in 2023 Crain’s Detroit named her “a Notable Leader in DEI.”

Her bio. published on the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce page states, “Her work is centered in ensuring that the most vulnerable have equitable access to resources and the opportunity to thrive.”

Records show the County’s DEI Dir. is using her county-issued credit card and taxpayer funds in notable ways in cities nationwide, including San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Houston, and even internationally.

Alize Asberry Payne’s spending was brought to the attention of The Ann Arbor Independent by a tipster who once worked in Washtenaw County government. The tipster wrote in an email: “Do I sound frustrated? You betcha. As a Washtenaw County taxpayer, I’m more than frustrated, I’m downright angry. Who is overseeing this?”

County credit card records showed that between 2022 and 2023, Asberry Payne:

Charged a $298 taxi ride in San Francisco;

Charged taxpayers over $7,000 for Uber and Lyft rides, including one Uber ride credit card charge of $1,258.12;

Charged to her County-provided credit card almost $2,000 in Uber Eats deliveries and along with that, spent an additional several thousand dollars at restaurants throughout the U.S.

Used her County credit card to charge two $1,477.75 rides from Metro Cars (she was accompanied by four County Commissioners and one of her staffers);
Charged her County credit card a total of $23,682.39 for airplane tickets, various airline fees, including luggage fees, and $5,924 in trip insurance payments. [The County’s checkbook shows in 2023, Asberry Payne was also reimbursed from the County’s General Fund in Oct. and Nov. 2023 $1,008 for three trips.]

County Administrator Dill, in a written statement sent in response to questions about the credit card changes, said:

“Related to the County credit card expenditures out of the Racial Equity Office in 2022 and 2023, the $115,000 in charges represent authorized expenses reflective of:

Commissioner and staff attendance at conferences and seminars and related travel.
Support for Community events
Operational supplies for public facing meetings and events.”

This explanation would suffice but for Dill’s October 18, 2023 County Revenue White Paper, sent to the County Commissioners. The document was not released to the public, but was sent anonymously to The Ann Arbor Independent.

In his 28-page treatise, the County Administrator recommends raising taxes in order to reverse what he terms $27.3 million in “revenue erosion.” Voters would have to approve Dill’s proposed 1.7 mill increase (at a cost of $170 for every $100,000 in taxable value of a taxpayer’s property).

In his White Paper he says, Commissioners should vote in 2024 or 2025 to place the question of a tax hike before voters in August. There is no mention of spending cuts; Dill does recommend cutting staff.

The other suggestion Dill makes is to place restricted fund balances from additional millages into the County’s General Fund. The $14.5 million Parks Millage fund balance, for example, would be available to Commissioners to ransack at will and spend on purposes voters never intended when the additional millage was passed.

Few Controls on Credit Card Spending

While the County Administrator suggests Commissioners appropriate dedicated millage fund balances, raise taxes and combat “revenue erosion,” in 2022, County employees charged a total of $2,174,419 to their County-provided credits cards. In 2023, that amount jumped 43 percent to $3,066,185. Asberry Payne’s credit card spending almost tripled between 2022 and 2023.

The Washtenaw County Credit Card use policy was last updated in Feb. 16, 2011. The language of the policy is simplistic, vague and leaves much to be desired when compared to the policies in place in other Michigan Counties. In Livingston County, for instance, the credit card use policy specifically addresses the procedures and documentation requirements related to the use of a county-issued card to make online purchases. The Washtenaw County policy does not. The Livingston County credit card policy requires card recipients to undergo training to understand the rules and requirements of usage. Washtenaw County issues credit cards without any such training in accountability.

In Prince George’s County, MD, unauthorized charges made to a county-issued credit card there must, by policy, be repaid with ten days. In Miami-Dade County, FL, employees may not use credit cards to buy items for personal use (bottled water, coffee, etc…). They are also forbidden from using county credit cards to make purchases related to travel and entertainment. Finally, all credit cards have a $2,999 limit.

County Administrator Greg Dill said that there is no evidence that Asberry Payne misused her County-provided credit card. But her increased credit card spending, including 18 trips in 24 months has ruffled feathers and raised eyebrows.

“If she needs so much professional development training, why did she get hired?” said a former Washtenaw County employee with knowledge of the situation.

A current County employee who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation reacted similarly. “When does she do her job? I’d love to know.”

When initially asked about her credit card spending, Asberry Payne replied in an email: “I forwarded your request to the FOIA Coordinator.”

In a more complete answer to an invitation to provide context, Asberry Payne wrote in an email, “In addition to direct expenses, my transaction history contains Commissioner related expenditures, authorized community related expenses, meeting costs, material costs, and costs for staff conference or professional development attendance.”

It’s unclear if Asberry Payne was required to sign a credit card program cardholder agreement.

County Administrator Gregory Dill said in a written statement, “As the Administrator, I have final authorization of all expenditures. Department heads do have the authority to authorize travel in support of their departmental operations, in alignment with County policy and procedures.”

As Asberry Payne pointed out above, “my transaction history contains Commissioner-related expenditures.” Such use of her credit card to purchase items for third parties thwarts the Michigan FOIA statute. It also interferes with the public’s right to know precisely how much money County Commissioners are spending on hotels, food and travel for themselves.

Records show Asberry Payne used her County-issued credit card to purchase thousands of dollars worth of travel, luxury hotel rooms and lodging for a group of County Commissioners (Justin Hodge, Annie Somerville, Caroline Sanders and Crystal Lyte). Only by requesting receipts for Asberry Payne’s card charges did the Commissioners’ spending (three of whom are running for re-election) come to light.

Commissioners each have a capped $7,000 in Flex Fund spending. Those records are public. However, the County’s Open Book is three years behind in posting the Commissioners’ spending information.

County Administrator Greg Dill, Commissioners Hodge, Somerville, Sanders and Lyte were asked if they would like to comment on Asberry Payne’s use of her credit card to pay travel and lodging for them. They did not reply.

In 2022, records show Asberry Payne spent $29,751 using her County-provided credit card.

2023 County credit card records show County Administrator Dill used his credit card to pay for 22 Lyft rides, total, including late night rides on Saturdays and Sundays.

While Asberry Payne ran up credit card charges in 2023 that topped $85,000, her boss charged $33,260.35 to his County credit card.

Alize Asberry Payne Slept (Ubered and Ate) Here

In a 2023 email shared with The Ann Arbor Independent, one western Washtenaw County elected official asks Alize Asberry Payne to attend a meeting of township elected officials to discuss county DEI programs. Her reply was that in the evening she preferred to be at home with her family (she has one child).

County records show that the email had been sent while Asberry Payne was out-of-town on a week-long trip. Asberry Payne did offer to schedule another time to meet with the elected officials, but during the day, when they all work.

The Hotel Palomar in Philadelphia describes itself as a “Boutique Hotel in Philly” and invites guests to “unwind” in one of “our 230 luxury hotel guestrooms…with fabulous Philly skyline views.” Rooms start at $201 per night.

The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island
The Hilton
Crystal Mountain Resort
Hotel Palomar in Philadelphia
The Meridian
The Westin St. Francis in San Francisco

Between 2022 and 2023 taxpayers footed the bill for Alize Asberry Payne to stay in these luxury hotels and others.

Between Feb. and June 2023, she charged the County for three stays at the Grand Hotel, for a total of $4,205. Between 2022 and 2023 Asberry Payne used her county credit card to pay thousands of dollars for dozens of Uber and Lyft rides, thousands of dollars for Uber Eats, and thousands of dollars for plane tickets, baggage fees and trip insurance.

Philly, DC, Phoenix, San Fran, Houston, Mackinac Island, Georgia, Cleveland, Seattle, Portland

In Sept. 2023, during a short trip to Philadelphia, PA, where she stayed at the Hotel Palomar ($512.76), she charged $219.20 at Luke’s Lobster, and the next day charged $295.29 at Amma’s South Indian Cuisine. During the trip to Philly, she charged $196 worth of Uber Eats, spent $36.76 at a bagel shop and $107 on two Uber rides.

Later that same month, Asberry Payne was in Washington, DC, a city with an excellent public transit system. She stayed at the Marriott ($1,477.71) and in a four-day period spent $1,195.94 on 34 Uber rides, according to County records.

Between Oct. 16-19, 2023, Alize Asberry Payne was in Cleveland, OH. She charged $6.25 at an Ohio Turnpike plaza to her county credit card, stayed at the Hilton Cleveland Downtown ($614.81), and while in Cleveland with her car, charged taxpayers for an Uber ride ($15.53). Asberry Payne was in Cleveland to attend the Lisa Howze Experience ($157). Lisa Howze is, in her own words, “an author, speaker, CPA, and professional strategist, who has positioned herself well as a venerable leader and ambassador for the accounting profession.” The goal of the Howze experience, according to Howze’s LinkedIn profile is, “to help professionals strategically position themselves for career advancement.”

On a single day, Sept. 25, 2023, county records show Alize Asberry Payne charged three Uber Eats meals. She also charged an eye-popping 17 Uber rides, totaling $516.85.

In 2022, Alize Asberry Payne took trips at taxpayer expense almost monthly; she used her County credit card to charge plane tickets, a $3,036 inflight purchase, $30 luggage fees, inflight purchases for food and drinks, trip travel insurance, Uber and Lyft rides, hotels, meals out at restaurants as well as Uber Eats.

Asberry Payne offered up an explanation for the June 27, 2022 $3,036 inflight charge:

“The only United charge at that level was due to a last-minute flight cancelation. I was coordinating a national site visit with elected officials and community partners that was scheduled to start that afternoon. I arrived at the airport to find my flight had been canceled due to mass national flight cancelations [sic]. I found a last-minute alternative on a different airline that was leaving immediately. If I remember correctly, 1800 flights nationally were canceled in a 48-hour period, all of the information was documented in detail given the unusual nature of the situation. As standard, the flight costs were insured for trip disruption.”

The “national site visit” was a weeklong trip to her hometown of San Francisco. County records show no purchase of any other flight by Asberry Payne on June 27, 2022. County records show the $3,036 inflight charge for her “cancelled flight” was reversed.

Between March 2-5, 2022, on a trip to Phoenix, AZ, Asberry Payne charged a dozen Uber Eats meals that cost $418.89, as well as $142 at a Panera Bread.

During an April 2022 trip to Seattle, WA and Portland, OR, county records show Asberry Payne charged $500 worth of food at the Villa Angel Taqueria in Portland; she charged $670.17 for food at Burgerville in the Portland airport and took 17 Uber and Lyft rides costing $299. On April 25, 2022, she charged an Uber trip that cost a whopping $800.

In June 2022, Asberry Payne took an almost week-long trip to San Francisco, where she grew up, a city that has one of the best public transit systems in the U.S.

Records show she paid $297.65 on a San Francisco Taxi ride. She used the Curb Taxi app. to summon and charge another $296.07 cab ride. On June 30, 2022, in addition to paying for $550 in meals out (including $258.75 on Mexican food, and $204.19 at a “lively” Spanish restaurant, the Picaro Cafe), while in her home town of San Francisco, Alize Asberry Payne spent $769.60 on cabs, Uber and Lyft rides.

When asked about the expensive meals out, Asberry Payne said, “I can say with certainty that any food or restaurant expense of $500, on any date, would have been for an approved group meal.”

Records show that on July 1, 2022, she charged $2,353.14 for lodging at the “iconic” hotel and resort the Westin Saint Francis in downtown San Francisco’s Union Square.

On July 3, 2022 Asberry Payne was back at work in Washtenaw County. She charged taxpayers for a $1,659.24 Metro Car ride to Grand Rapids.

On July 8, 2022 Asberry Payne paid the County back $387.20 for unauthorized charges she made at her San Francisco hotel.

In August 2022, the head of the County’s DEI office was off on yet another trip, this time to Houston, Texas for a conference.

In May, August, and Sept. 2023, Asberry Payne used her county credit card and charged stays at the Callaway Gardens Resort in Pine Mountain, GA. In Dec. 2023, she was asked to reimburse one $429.84 charge to the Callaway Discovery Cafe.

“ROAD TRIP?!?!”

In the movie “Legally Blonde” starring Reece Witherspoon, when Witherspoon tells her two sorority sisters that she’s going to Harvard, one friend asks, “You mean like on vacay? Let’s all go!” Then the two confused college co-eds jump up and down and scream, “Road trip?!?!”

In the 24 months between Jan. 2022 and Dec. 2023, county taxpayers purchased Allianz Travel Insurance charged to Asberry Payne’s county-issued credit card to insure the following trips:

02/10/2023 37.00 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

05/02/2023 29.58 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

07/21/2023 32.33 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

08/03/2023 20.78 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

08/07/2023 20.23 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

08/07/2023 21.88 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

09/05/2023 283.68 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

09/07/2023 34.25 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

10/02/2023 210.06 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

10/03/2023 210.08 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

11/13/2023 189.81 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

11/13/2023 191.50 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

11/27/2023 25.18 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

11/27/2023 30.13 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

11/27/2023 31.61 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

11/27/2023 54.58 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

11/27/2023 158.72 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

2/9/22 $6.91 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

2/16/22 $86.98 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

3/2/22 $60.57 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

4/28/22 $337.20 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

5/13/22 $1,698.20 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

7/29/22 $500.00 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

9/21/22 $198.60 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

9/21/22 $212.50 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

9/21/22 $257.60 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

9/21/22 $537.20 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

9/22/22 $28.74 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

9/23/22 $396.96 ALLIANZ TRAVEL INS

County records show that in April and May 2023, Alize Asberry Payne charged two $1,477 payments to her County-provided credit card to pay for Metro Car rides. The newspaper obtained the original receipts for the two charges.

Records show that the Metro Car rides were for Asberry Payne, County Commission Chair Justin Hodge, County Commissioners Annie Somerville, Caroline Sanders, and Crystal Lyte, and Terrence Williams. Williams works for Asberry Payne. The Metro Car picked up the county employees at 8 a.m. from the County Building in downtown Ann Arbor and drove them eight hours north to Shepler’s dock, where the group took a ferry to Mackinac Island for the 2023 Mackinac Conference.

“Metro Cars trips at that level of expenditure would be for approved Commissioner and/or Staff group travel. Group travel rather than individual travel is utilized when mileage reimbursement for individual transportation is cost prohibitive and/or logistically unreasonable,” said Asberry Payne.

Kayak.com shows that the four-day rental of a 12-person Ford Transit passenger van from Budget costs $296 and includes unlimited mileage. The Mackinac Conference lasts three days. The van gets 19 miles per gallon and the distance between Ann Arbor and Shepler’s dock is 273 miles. With gas, a rented passenger van for those days for the roundtrip between Shepler’s Dock and the County Building on Main Street would have cost under $425 rather than $2,954.

Commissioner Flex Spending records from 2021 show a mileage reimbursement to then Commissioner Sue Shink of $190.79 for her trip to and from a conference on Mackinac Island. Commissioner Caroline Sanders went to the same conference. She asked to be reimbursed $315.84 for mileage to and from the Mackinac Island conference. She also asked to be reimbursed for $232.75 for “personal expenditures.” Sanders stayed at the Grand Hotel, as did Justin Hodge and Sue Shink. Neither Hodge or Shink requested reimbursement for mileage or personal expenditures. Sanders tried to collect $806.36 for her stay at the Grand Hotel; she was forced to pay back $369.65, records show.

The 2023 Mackinac Conference focused “the Power of &,” which invited dialogue among speakers and attendees on why Michigan needs an “and” approach instead of “either or” policy solutions. The “and” approach should create a healthy, productive tension among leaders with different points of view. When it comes to Michigan’s greatest issues and opportunities, “the Power of &” brings otherwise polarized sides closer together to provide the needed stimulus for leaders to bring nuanced thinking to problem solving.”

Ironically, one of the proposed “benefits” of the “&” approach is increased “financial responsibility.”

County records show that as well as the metrocar rides, County taxpayers spent thousands of dollars on lodging for the same group of people. Asberry Payne’s credit card was used to pay $998 on a one bedroom Airbnb for two people during the 2023 Mackinac Conference. The Airbnb, 202 Applewood, described in the receipt submitted by Asberry Payne, is a “clean quiet one-bedroom condo.”

Commissioner Somerville was asked in an email if it was she (and a guest) who stayed in the Airbnb. She did not reply.

DEI Dir. Asberry Payne stayed at the Grand Hotel ($2,620).

County Commissioner Justin Hodge treated himself to a $2,203 stay at the Mission Point Resort “Straight Lodge Hot Tub Junior Suite,” with a view of the Straights of Mackinac and $5.00 carriage rides to the Mackinac Conference site.

County records show that taxpayers paid for County Commissioner Crystal Lyte, elected in 2022, to stay in the Mission Point Resort Straight Lodge Family Suite with a kitchen, at a cost of $1,930. On Lyte’s receipt it says one person stayed in the two-bedroom family suite between May 30 and June 1, 2023.

A call to the Mission Point Resort showed that Lyte was put in a suite with a king bed, not the family suite for which the County paid. Lyte’s suite cost $1,609, according to an official at the resort.

Likewise, Commissioner Caroline Sanders stayed at the Mission Point resort in a king bed suite($1,630).

The inaccuracy of the financial records produced by the County’s Finance Dept. in response to the newspaper’s FOIA request for original documentation submitted for individual credit card charges for lodging on Mackinac Island went unexplained. Instead, Greg Dill offered up this comment:

“As a result of our financial practices, Washtenaw County’s 2022 Financial Audit was clean, with no findings or fines. The County earned an ‘Outstanding Achievement for Financial Reporting’ award from the Government Financial Officers Association. We are just now beginning the process for our 2023 audit.”

County Administrator Greg Dill, who has a County car, charged the cost of a monthly SiriusXM.com account to his county credit card. Those charges ranged from $51.20 to $87.37 per month.