Montgomery County fire department employees used a taxpayer-funded tuition assistance program to take Spanish lessons in Costa Rica that included cooking and dancing classes, according to records obtained by The Washington Examiner.
At least three fire employees have taken Spanish courses in the last two years with Centro Panamericano De Idiomas in Costa Rica ranging in price from $415 to $1,306, records show.
According to the company’s Web site, the classes include dance and cooking classes, “movie night” and “cultural week” as part of the tuition. Textbooks are also included.
Extra-curriculars available at Costa Rican language schools, not included in tuition:
» “Monteverde offers abundant opportunities for hiking, bird-watching, and exploring the local cloud forest reserves. Students can take horseback rides to see the sun set over the Nicoya gulf, zip through the canopy of the cloud forest and take weekend trips to the Arenal Volcano or Manuel Antonio National Park.”
» “Activities in Heredia include visits to a butterfly farm, a tour of a local coffee plantation, waterfall rapelling, hiking to the Barva Volcano, rain forest canopy tours, river boat excursions to Sarapiqui, as well as trips to museums, theaters, movies, and nightclubs in San Jose.”
Source: Centro Panamericano de Idiomas
And the county picked up the tab for a fire department employee’s room and board, which includes laundry service, for a two-week “Medical Spanish” class taken in 2008, the current pricing guide on the Web site suggests. The county paid $1,306 for the course, records show, while the tuition for class is currently $760 for two weeks while room and board range between $150 to $350 a week.
County records also show that the county paid $1,730 for a member of the county’s volunteer fire department to go on an archaeological dig in France for 12 days this summer as part of Howard Community College’s study abroad program.
The head of the county’s tuition assistance program, Office of Human Resources Director Joseph Adler, could not be reached for comment. But county officials have made it clear that program is supposed to go toward instruction, not for supplies or extra-curricular activities.
Council President Phil Andrews, D-Gaithersburg/Rockville, said the Costa Rican Spanish lessons were “another troubling example” of how the tuition assistance program, which costs the county about $1 million a year, is being misused.
“That doesn’t seem appropriate to me,” he said. Andrews has called for the program to be suspended for a year while reforms are made.
Montgomery County employees have a strong incentives to learn foreign languages. The county pays about $1 million a year to give bonuses of $2,000 to $4,000 a year to employees who speak any foreign language, even if they never speak that language on the job.
In the last two years, the county also has paid for fire department employees to take language classes at local colleges in German, Hebrew, Arabic, and American Sign Language.
The tuition assistance program has been under investigation since July, when Sheriff Raymond Kight told county officials that a training company may have used the fund to sells guns to public safety employees at steep discounts.
