Well-paid education boss spent $18,000 of taxpayer cash on safari

Two Pennsylvania education officials were revealed to have cashed in thousands of taxpayer money to go on luxury vacations across three continents, including a safari and a trip to the Alps. Montgomery County Intermediate Unit 23's Executive Director Dr Regina Speaker, 60, and Assistant Executive Director Sandra Edling, 51, in Norristown were revealed to have spent nearly $40,000 of public money to fund expensive vacations since 2023. Included in the trips was a 14-day African safari, costing around $18,000, according to expense reports obtained by the Philadelphia Inquirer. Speaker and Edling booked a trip to Kenya and Tanzania in the summer of 2023, touring across to the Serengeti and Mount Kenya.

Then last spring, Speaker was reported to have used her Intermediate Unit credit card to fly to South Korea and Singapore on an 11-day trip, while Edling traveled to Central Europe in the fall. Then, Edling's card was canceled after funding concerns arose, the Inquirer reported. Detailed receipts were missing from expense claims and specific travel locations weren't given, including information on their international destinations, according to the outlet. Speaker, however, defended the expenses as legitimate and claimed they followed proper procedure. She claimed that the money had already been allocated for these purposes, the outlet reported. 'Everything was signed off on by the board president and clearly communicated. There was nothing underhanded about it,' she said.

But Jennifer Wilson, who served on the IU's board from 2017 to last November, said that there was no knowledge of the nature of some of the expenses, noting that certain trips looked like 'vacations.' 'We never got notice [Speaker] was going on these trips at all,' Wilson said, according to the Inquirer. 'In my home school district, the superintendent tells us if he's going out of town for the weekend,' added Wilson, who serves as vice president of the Hatboro-Horsham School Board. The Montco IU Unit 23 is one of 29 state-mandated agencies in Pennsylvania and is granted a budget of $198 million with 848 employees. Funding pours in from a combination of local, state and federal funding to help support around 200 public and private schools, according to the Inquirer. Despite whether the trips were sanctioned, public finance experts queried if public funds should cover such things as giraffe feeding or guided tours in foreign countries.

'We use examples like this to warn people that these are public funds,' Marguerite Roza, the director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, told the outlet. Roza warned that incidents such as these make taxpayers reluctant and cynical about what their money is being put towards. 'You need to make sure your expenditures make sense and are justified, but also, contemplate the optics,' she added. Speaker was appointed as executive director in 2020, promising a mission of 'global community' as she explained the travel expenses. Her base salary was reported at $298,000 in 2025, according to the outlet. The executive said that the international trips were part of a yearlong academy for education leaders run by the School Superintendents Association (AASA). 'Everything was through the lens of leadership. It was about that process of survival of the fittest, and how are you a leader, and what do you prioritize,' she claimed.

Speaker made note that the trip included visiting a tribal school. Besides the school, the costly trip included six sightseeing tours, eight wildlife drives and 11 'handpicked' hotels, the outlet reported. Edling was also seen to have used her card for a $7,000 trip in March 2025, only giving 'conference' as a reason for the expense, records show according to the Inquirer. She was paid a base salary of $215,000 last year, the outlet reported. Speaker claimed to the Inquirer that Edling's purchase had been approved by another assistant executive director and was for a 10-day trip to Germany, Switzerland and Austria in October 2025 sponsored by the AASA. 'The whole idea was to bring her up to speed on the leadership component,' Speaker explained. However, the trip's description included a tour of Munich, Viennese waltz lessons, an underground train ride to Austria's ancient Hallein Salt Mine, a trip to 'crazy King Ludwig's fairy tale castle of Neuschwanstein' and an alpine hut dinner, according to the brochure viewed by the Inquirer.

The itinerary also reportedly saw a visit to a school on day five and day nine of the trip. Following the expensive getaways, Speaker froze travel last year after Pennsylvania's four-month budget impasse was a large element of the IU's funding. Suddenly, staff pay was threatened. The freeze also came after the Inquirer requested the expenditure records. Speaker told the outlet that they were able to refund the trip, while Edling said that meeting with education leaders abroad would have been a justifiable expense. 'We believe we need to grow the global partnership concept,' Edling told the Inquirer. 'Other intermediate units are also working on that. As an educational service agency, we have to be at the forefront of what's next, what's new.' Lara Wade, the AASA's director of communications, told the Inquirer that they are involving in the planning of the trips, but they don't track whether taxpayer money is used or if they pay their own way. 'From AASA's perspective, these international delegations are designed as professional learning experiences for senior education leaders,' she said. 'They include school visits, meetings with education leaders, but they're not intended to mirror classroom-style professional development or be evaluated solely by the number of hours spent inside schools.'

Juliane Ramić, who served as the former Montco IU board president in 2023, approved Speaker's expenses for her trip to Africa, but this month she could not recall if she was aware of the true nature of these expenses at the time, the outlet reported. Records obtained by the Inquirer showed the expenses submitted contained little documentation, despite receipts being presented for routine business expenses. In May 2023, for example, a receipt was included for a $54.47 lunch at Redstone American Grill, yet the $9,342 expense related to the safari was only evidenced in a screengrab of her phone showing the amount charged to her card, the outlet reported. In April 2025, a new board president was appointed as Speaker took a trip to South Korea and Singapore. The trip was reportedly part of the leadership academy run by the Association of Educational Service Agencies, costing $13,000 in two installments from Speaker's company credit card. According to records seen by the Inquirer, one of the installments in December 2024 was not approved, and that month's expenses were not signed or dated. Ramić told the outlet that, while she does not believe any wrongdoing took place, she has asked that travel expenses be more transparent in the future. Lee Ann Wentzel was also on the trip to Africa as well as a trip to Israel beforehand, but said she paid for both trips herself. 'Some people look at it as a vacation, others work related,' she said. 'I think both things can be true.'

However, Wentzel defended the trips purposes, saying: 'Speaking to locals, learning about their personal education journeys and how different government schools are versus religious and private schools, and what services are offered, that's something you're not going to see unless you to go international settings.' Roza, for her part, said board members need to be more diligent about how such spending can affect trust in the officials by the public. In her opinion, the safari was a 'misuse of public funds.' 'If I was a board member and my superintendent was taking trips like this, I'd be like, "I think I just lost confidence in you,"' Roza told the outlet. The Daily Mail reached out to Speaker and Edling for comment.