You didn’t think we could get through the last few days of 2007 without one more Smithsonian scandal, did you? The Post has a lengthy report today on National Museum of the American Indian’s retiring director Rick West and the whopping $250,000 of Institution funds he spent on travel and luxuries.

Although West can account for some of the travel — going to visit Indian reservations, meeting donors — much of it is vaguely characterized as trips for “speeches or presentations” in exotic and seemingly unrelated locales like New Zealand and Bali. The Post notes he traveled for a total of 576 days in the last six years — even more than disgraced former Institution director Lawrence M. Small — under the organization’s unlimited leave with pay rule; a rule that was finally revoked after Small’s resignation. Though West defends his excessive travel and posh accommodations by saying that all his expenses were approved by Smithsonian officials, the somewhat frantic emails in the past few months noting concern if the details were ever released to the public indicate consciousness that all these expenses were perhaps not in the best interest of the museum and the public that pays for it.

Not that fear of being outted stopped them. The Post also shines the light on West’s many farewell parties in the past few weeks, including swanky dinners and cocktail parties with a price tag of over $120,000, complete with a sappy eight-minute video about West’s career that clocked in at thirty grand.

When West punches out for the last time at the end of the year, he’ll be just the latest Smithsonian official to leave in 2007 with gross financial spending as his legacy, trailing Small, who left in March, former Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer Sheila P. Burke, who resigned in June, Business Ventures Chief Gary Beer in August, among others. The Institution is still looking for new leadership, with Cristián Samper as acting Director in the interim.

Photo by LaTur