Community College of Allegheny County President Stewart Sutin acknowledged yesterday that a $457 college-paid bill to transport him to and from his conference hotel in Seattle was "egregious," but not indicative of his travel habits.

He said CCAC officials including himself spend judiciously while on the road. He welcomed the trustees' hiring of an outside firm for a special audit of college-wide policies as a way for his cash-strapped school to become even more efficient.

The firm, Schneider Downs & Co., was chosen at yesterday's special meeting of the CCAC board's finance committee, which also took steps to more closely monitor future college trips.

In his first comments on travel practices by him and CCAC's board that drew criticism from the county's chief executive, Dr. Sutin said he, too, was surprised by the $332.43 car rental bill and $125 parking tab for five nights at the Association of Community College Trustees meeting in September.

He said the rental car to get him between the airport and the Crowne Plaza Hotel was booked, like all his travel, in advance by an assistant.

"That was a lesson for me," he said. "In retrospect, had I been aware that type of fee would have been there, I would not have rented that car."

He said he decided as a result not to seek reimbursement for his Seattle flight.

Dr. Sutin said arriving two days before the start of an October conference in Charleston, S.C., allowed him to get daylong advice from other college presidents on ways to better organize CCAC. He said a $140 restaurant tab submitted without explanation was for himself, CCAC senior vice president Peggy Williams-Betlyn and a third individual he could not recall.

He said he flew into the smaller Myrtle Beach airport nearly 100 miles from the conference because of difficulties getting a suitable flight to Charleston. The flight, booked three months before the conference, brought him home a day before the gathering adjourned because he had to be back in Pittsburgh for a meeting. He did not elaborate.

Referring to restaurant tabs, Dr. Sutin said it's not unusual for college officials to host one another after exchanging ideas at conference gatherings. He pays when other CCAC administrators dine with him.

"It's not Stu Sutin sitting at a table having a lot of expensive wine and gorging himself," he said.

He and Paul Whitehead, CCAC board chairman, said controversies that led to the special audit and a decision to follow the state's Open Records Law shouldn't detract from CCAC's important role. Mr. Whitehead said the publicly funded college's ability to stave off a tuition increase in hard financial times suggests the school is in control of its finances.

"Now, do we have problem areas? Yes," Mr. Whitehead said. "I think we're becoming a better college as a result of disclosure. We're going to manage these problems and work very hard to put them behind us."

The rental car and South Carolina trip were reported as part of a Wednesday Post-Gazette story about CCAC travel.

The newspaper's review of hundreds of CCAC travel documents found that normal and accepted standards for documenting and controlling expenses often do not apply to CCAC's president and board. Expenses were paid as submitted, oftentimes without receipts or explanations. Restaurant bills large or small did not require an explanation of who or how many people dined at college expense, and why.

In the report's wake, County Chief Executive Dan Onorato ordered a halt to any undocumented reimbursements and asked for a college-wide review of planned trips.

He said he saw no reason for alcohol being reimbursed, an apparent reference to one restaurant tab in New Orleans that the college paid for CCAC board vice chairman Bill Robinson in 2004. Mr. Onorato called the college's payment in September of a sightseeing tour in Seattle for Mr. Robinson questionable.

Schneider Downs will receive $42,000 plus administrative costs to examine practices on expense reporting and reimbursement; procurement and contracting; executive recruitment; hiring; and compensation and benefit packages for deans and above.