Romney administration reviewing trips made by technology chief

The Romney administration has launched a review of several out-of-state trips that its top technology officer took to conferences sponsored in part by companies who stand to benefit from a change in computer software used by the state.

Peter J. Quinn, director of the state's Informational Technology Division and its chief information officer, has traveled to 12 out-of-state conferences in the last two years, visiting Brazil, Ottawa, San Francisco, Japan, Puerto Rico, and other locations, records show. Most of the conferences were sponsored by technology and information companies.

Romney administration officials are investigating whether Quinn violated travel procedures by not obtaining written authorization for six of the trips -- to Brazil, Ottawa, San Francisco, and other cities -- since September 2004. For six other trips, he received written approval from his supervisor.

The state launched its inquiry after the Globe began asking questions about the trips earlier this week; it is being conducted by Thomas H. Trimarco, the head of Administration and Finance. Two Romney administration officials, who asked not to be identified because the inquiry was ongoing, said Trimarco will seek to determine why Quinn did not obtain written authorization for the travel and whether having trips paid for by conference sponsors would have violated the state's conflict-of-interest law.

On most of the trips, Quinn said, his travel and other expenses were paid for by the sponsors of the conferences. On two of the trips -- to Tucson and Washington, D.C. -- Quinn paid his own way, according to state records and an interview with Quinn.

Eric Fehrnstrom, director of communications for Romney, said Wednesday that ''we have discovered there is not a complete record for all of Mr. Quinn's travels, and we are reviewing the matter," referring to a state requirement that employees obtain authorization for travel. State rules also require employees to provide a detailed estimate of the cost of travel sponsored by private firms and other outside groups.

Quinn was appointed in September 2002, before Romney won election. In an e-mail responding to questions from the Globe, Quinn said that former administration and finance secretary Eric Kriss had told him that he did not have to receive written authorization for his 2005 travel. He said Kriss had given him verbal approvals for the trips. Most of the trips for which he did not get authorization occurred this year.

Kriss, who left state government in September, did not return phone messages left at his home yesterday and Wednesday.

Quinn is at the center of a controversial decision to require all documents produced by the state's executive branch to be stored in a new, universal format, called Open Document, that would work with many brands of software and is less likely to become obsolete. The change, closely watched in the information technology business, would require modifications to software running on thousands of state computers and is widely seen as a challenge to Microsoft Corp., which makes the Microsoft Office software used to generate documents.

In the interview, Quinn said that he was in demand at the conferences because of the state's initiative to move toward ''open standards" for its computer systems, which would be able to read or use documents that are written with programs other than Office.

Quinn said he sought the legal advice of Linda M. Hamel, the lawyer for the Informational Technology Division, on the propriety of his appearing at a conference in which his travel and room were being paid for by the sponsors of the conference. He declined to provide the specifics of which trips he discussed with her or the advice she gave him.

But in general, Quinn said, he sought Hamel's opinion ''if I thought there might be an issue."

Hamel confirmed that she and Quinn had discussed the trips, but said: ''I don't know if he brought every trip to my attention."

Hamel added that she did not know if state employees were required to ''pierce the veil" of who was sponsoring such conferences to make certain that companies doing business with the Commonwealth were not trying to curry favor with state policy makers by paying their way to such meetings.

Yet, the state administration and finance travel procedures, in place since the mid-1990s, mandate that whenever officials have their travel paid for by someone other than the Commonwealth or themselves they provide a ''detailed estimate" of the cost of the trip plus a breakdown of how much is being paid for by the private parties and the relationships between the private parties and the state.

Quinn filed travel authorization forms with Kriss for six trips he took in 2004. He provided the name of the conferences he was attending, but only the total amount of money that the trip cost on three of them: $1,151 paid for by the World Software and Technology Convention in Japan, $543 he spent to attend the Center for Digital Government conference in Tucson, and $221.70 he spent to speak at a conference in Chicago. On the form seeking approval to travel to Puerto Rico for five days in May 2004, to speak at an ''Open Source Congress," he did not list how much the trip was expected to cost and only that the expenses were paid for by the company, Altamente, which is based in Puerto Rico.

Even though a galaxy of computer companies are listed as sponsors of many of the conferences, Quinn did not list any of them on his authorization forms or the business relationships any of them have with the Commonwealth.

Quinn said he gained significant expertise for the state by attending the conferences, and has turned down other invitations because he felt he would not learn from the gatherings. On numerous occasions, he said, he spent money out of his own pocket to pay for some expenses and took late-night flights to minimize the time he spent out of office.

''There has been a great deal of interest, both in the government sector and the private sector, in the adoption of Open Standards by Massachusetts," Quinn said in an e-mail. ''The interest is focused on the why we adopted standards and what we learned throughout our journey. As a result, I have found myself in demand as a conference speaker. Each interaction is an opportunity for me to continue my learning."

Robert Weisman of the Globe staff contributed to this report.