Lowry Park Zoo will try to retrieve cash from former president Lex Salisbury

TAMPA — Armed with an audit showing it is owed more than $200,000, Lowry Park Zoo has hired an attorney to try to collect from its former president, Lex Salisbury.

A city audit in December concluded Salisbury directed zoo animals and equipment to his private properties and made zoo employees work for him there, gave himself an unauthorized bonus, and may have violated travel policies by taking his wife to Hungary and Ethiopia on the zoo's dime.

The final draft of the audit, made public Monday, recommended that Salisbury reimburse the zoo for those expenses.

"I can't tell you if there's a certain dollar amount we're trying to get back," said zoo spokeswoman Rachel Nelson. "Our attorney will be in negotiations with Mr. Salisbury's attorney."

The zoo also sent a copy of the final audit to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Salisbury could not be reached for comment.

Some of the audit's findings:

• Eleven of 18 birds the zoo bought were transferred to Safari Wild, a for-profit animal park Salisbury is building. Five died there. The other six were returned to the zoo.

• Salisbury gave a used lawn mower worth $3,972 and $3,433 in cash to the zoo in exchange for a 1961 Mercedes truck with a new roof and sound system valued at $13,178, a $5,773 loss to the zoo.

• Quarantine pens deemed unusable by the zoo ended up at Safari Wild. The zoo then spent $30,000 for new pens.

• Salisbury bought feed from the zoo without paying sales taxes.

• Salisbury put "excessive or inappropriate" charges on the zoo's credit card. In fiscal years 2007 and 2008, those included $12,700 to local restaurants, $400 for 56 Starbucks purchases and $14,000 for gasoline.

The early version of the audit prompted the resignation of Salisbury, who had been at the helm of the zoo for two decades.

Since then, zoo leadership has been working to fix the policies and procedures that afforded Salisbury such latitude.

The final audit includes responses from the zoo, which generally accepted all of the city's audit recommendations.

"They put in place a lot of policies to prevent what happened from happening again," said Santiago Corrada, the city's administrator for neighborhood services and a member of the zoo's executive committee. "Pretty much they're saying we will do what you want us to do to make things right. The responses are very strong."

Among other changes, zoo officials agreed to tighten security, improve communication with employees, remove a top-heavy bonus plan and closely monitor credit card use.

"They are very committed to turning the situation around," said Mayor Pam Iorio, who called for the audit because the zoo sits on city property and a lease agreement gives the city ownership of all the zoo's animals.

"They have gone through that audit. They have made policy and procedural changes. They have made attitude changes," she said. "It's a very different situation over there today."

Corrada said the audit was forwarded to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

"They've shown an interest in receiving this final audit and to make a determination if there's anything in there they want to follow up on," Corrada said.

Janet Zink can be reached at jzink@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3401.