This Is Reno obtained two-and-a-half years of City of Reno public records on discretionary spending to see how the Mayor and City Council members spent those funds. Hours were dedicated to poring over numerous travel receipts, city council donations, candidate disclosures and other documents. Findings reveal that some council members have repeatedly submitted travel requests and expense reports that may violate city policies. Expenses also have unclear benefits for the Reno community.
This is part nine in a 10-part series, which is being published over the coming days. Read the complete series here. Subscribe here to get access to all This Is Reno articles.
Reno City Council member Miguel Martinez has traveled to two different conferences, and both times he appears to have violated a number of policies in submitting documents for approval. He also received extra money back in travel reimbursements after being reimbursed for a meal and a plane ticket, according to his travel records. Records provided by the city do not show those extra reimbursements were paid back. Martinez and city officials did not respond to This Is Reno to explain the charges.
Martinez’s first trip as a council member was to New York City to attend the July 2023 National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund conference. He registered for the conference and purchased airfare in April 2023, but he did not submit a travel request form until Aug. 8—more than three weeks after he returned from the trip on July 16. The expense report with receipts was submitted a week after that.
The trip’s conference registration, lodging, meal costs and incidentals were estimated by Martinez to cost $2,231, even though by Aug. 8, when the request was submitted, he’d already spent nearly $4,000 on those things. Airfare for the trip wasn’t included in his travel request since the $1,200 plane ticket was purchased months earlier on a city credit card.
Martinez listed the GSA rate of $220 per night on his travel request form. The actual room cost, based on the receipt provided with his expense report, was $455.62 per night with taxes and fees.
The council member, however, listed the room rate as $492.15 per night on his expense report, a figure derived from dividing his total hotel bill—which included a $183 charge to the hotel restaurant—by the five nights he stayed. He also charged $79 in meals and incidentals for each seven days of travel—including on the day of his $183 hotel dinner.
In addition to submitting his travel documents long after the city’s 10-day post-travel timeframe, it doesn’t appear Martinez received approval from Thornley for the pricey hotel room before it was paid for. If he did, city officials did not produce it as part of a public records request. City officials also did not respond to questions about how such charges are approved.
Martinez also did not provide a reason for staying in New York City two days after the conference ended, on July 13, 2023, but a source said he brought his family on the trip and spent those days sightseeing with them.
Thornley signed off on Martinez’s travel request and expense report as submitted.
In October 2023, Martinez traveled to Dallas, Texas, for the National Recreation and Parks Association conference. In a travel request form he submitted on Nov. 8, 2023, nearly a month after returning from the trip, Martinez estimated his travel costs to be $2,760, including four nights lodging at $184 per night—the GSA rate for Austin, Texas. The GSA rate for Dallas in October 2023 was $164.
However, the travel expense report Martinez submitted for reimbursement on the same day totaled $5,787 in expenses. It included a reservation for four nights at the conference hotel for two people in a “premier executive room” at $915.57 per night—including two nights before the conference began so he could play in the conference’s Oct. 9 optional golf tournament.
Thornley’s signature is on a memo dated Nov. 8, the same day as the expense report, approving the room cost that came in at $732 over the GSA rate Martinez included, for Austin, and $752 over the actual GSA rate for Dallas.
Martinez’s expense report for that trip also requested reimbursement for a $742 plane ticket. Records show the flight was purchased for him on a city credit card by Assistant City Manager Ashley Turney.
Despite Turney’s name being listed on the flight receipt, Thornley signed off on Martinez’s expense report, and the finance department provided him with reimbursement of nearly $4,800, which covered expenses for lodging, meals, airport parking and the flight Turney purchased on a city credit card.
The $4,800 reimbursement to Martinez is less than the $5,787 total trip cost because the conference’s registration of $1,005 was purchased in advance using a city credit card, according to the city’s documentation.
This Is Reno reached out to city officials and to Martinez to see if the money for the extra meal in New York City and the plane ticket to Dallas were paid back to the city. They did not respond.
Read part 10 tomorrow.
This story has been updated with new information regarding Martinez's family traveling with him to New York City.
