SAN ANTONIO – The former director of purchasing at Texas A&M University-San Antonio said he repeatedly warned superiors that employees were improperly using school credit cards.
“Fine dining, purchase of alcohol. Exceeding the per diem rates,” said Daniel Garza, who also served as the university’s director of auxiliary services before stepping down several years ago.
In his first sit-down interview, Garza told KSAT Investigates he repeatedly flagged purchases made by high-ranking staff of the school, only for those complaints to be ignored.
Internal email and expense report records appear to back up that claim.
Expense reports reveal alcohol-only purchases by former provost
Garza credits himself and his team with bringing Texas A&M-San Antonio into the modern age of university procurement.
“We drafted policies and procedures because they didn’t have any at the time,” said Garza, who also provided KSAT copies of records showing weekly training sessions offered by his procurement staff.
Garza, who has worked in procurement for more than 40 years, said it did not take him long to realize the written policies were not being followed.
According to university procurement rules in place during Garza’s tenure with the school, alcohol was a prohibited purchase — without exception.
But expense report records show then-Provost Michael O’Brien frequently charged alcohol to his meals tabs while representing Texas A&M-San Antonio.
The procurement card charges included a more than $500 dinner at Morton’s The Steakhouse in downtown San Antonio in February 2019.
Days later, on a trip to Corpus Christi described in records as an effort to find potential donors for the school, O’Brien used his university P-Card to buy Patron margaritas, Dewar’s and wine, but no food, at Doc’s Seafood and Steaks, records show.
The same expense report shows that in the same month, O’Brien used the card at the Park Hyatt Lounge in Washington, D.C. to purchase only alcohol.
“Never. Never. Working for federal government and county government, I’ve never seen that ever,” said Garza, when asked by KSAT if he experienced other instances of receiving receipts for purchases of alcohol only.
An Texas A&M-San Antonio spokeswoman deferred KSAT’s inquiries about its procurement policies and regulations to those currently in place by the Texas A&M University System, Texas A&M-San Antonio’s parent organization.
The system’s policy on alcohol allows it to be purchased under certain circumstances, including “in support of events and activities which further the mission” of the university.
Internal records show that procurement staff and Garza, throughout much of his tenure, flagged purchases made by O’Brien and O’Brien’s then administrative assistant and reported their credit card activity to Dr. Bill Spindle, who served as the university’s chief financial officer.
In early 2018, Texas A&M-San Antonio procurement staff moved to deactivate the administrative assistant’s P-Card over missing receipts for purchases made to LinkedIn and a cable company, records show.
O’Brien eventually emailed Garza and Spindle and wrote, “I told you guys before that I will not put up with this harassment and tone. Two stupid receipts from last August. Give me a freaking break. Next time, I go straight to College Station and report the abuse. You apparently have a control freak on your hands who loves to make people feel subservient. I want it stopped.”
Garza was then instructed to reactivate the assistant’s card, he told KSAT.
That same month, according to records, Garza sent Spindle an email warning him that the procurement program would be jeopardized if an auditor uncovered what was taking place.
A year later, in the spring of 2019, Spindle ordered Garza’s office to remove all merchant blocks from cards belonging to O’Brien and the university’s then-President Cynthia Teniente-Matson, records show.
Reached by phone, Spindle, who has since retired, told KSAT he could not recall sending the memo.
“I don’t know what he (O’Brien) was doing on his trips. That’s between him and the president,” Spindle said. “My job was to make sure we were following the rules, and that’s what I tried to do.”
O’Brien, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment from KSAT for this story, stepped down as Texas A&M-San Antonio’s provost in late 2021 amid a multi-million dollar budget shortfall at the school.
O’Brien remains a faculty member in the university’s College of Arts and Sciences, according to the school’s website.
Jessica Loudermilk, who served as Matson’s chief of staff and is now the university’s vice president of strategic communication, used her P-Card to purchase alcohol at least 10 times between March 2019 and May 2024, records show.
Descriptions of the events include “cocktails for concluding session of strategic planning retreat” that was attended by cabinet members and “Alcohol & refreshment expenses at president-hosted offsite employee morale & engagement meeting,” records show.
Loudermilk did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment from KSAT for this story.
KSAT could find no record that she was disciplined over the use of the university credit card.
“I don’t feel I had the support or protection from my leadership. And it got to the point where we were being targeted,” said Garza, when asked to describe the reaction from school leaders when he would question purchases that were made.
Records show former director of financial aid purchased technology before IT approval
Expense report records also show the university’s former director of financial aid, Phillip Rodgers, repeatedly bought technology prior to receiving approval from IT.
“He signed off on the training and that evening he went online to procure a laptop,” said Garza, who added that IT was required to sign off on technology purchases ahead of time.
This allows the university to track the asset and to ensure the item is compatible with network security measures.
Procurement staff, including Garza, repeatedly flagged Rodgers’ purchases due to the lack of preapproval from IT.
The purchases were eventually approved anyway, according to records.
Rodgers, who did not respond to requests for comment from KSAT for this story, appeared to finally correct the issue in the summer of 2021 and began to get IT approval prior to making purchases.
KSAT could find no record that he was ever disciplined over the issue.
By then, Garza told KSAT that the repeated bypassing of rules by staff had become too much to handle, and he quit his job.
“It was affecting my health,” Garza said. “It was so extreme.”
Among the purchases flagged by Garza during his tenure were tickets to a San Antonio Spurs game bought for Matson on a university credit card, records show.
Such purchases were prohibited, according to Texas A&M-San Antonio procurement rules in place during Garza’s tenure.
KSAT could find no such policy set by the Texas A&M University System related to the purchase of tickets to sporting events.
Matson left Texas A&M-San Antonio in 2022 to become president of San José State University.
Matson did not respond to multiple requests for comment from KSAT for this story.
Investigation of former A&M-San Antonio HR manager handed over to state auditor’s office
Garza said he came forward after watching a KSAT Investigates story in July on former Texas A&M-San Antonio human resources manager Christina Gomez.
Gomez resigned at the end of March, while the university investigated the use of her university procurement card.
“I thought ‘this is barely touching the surface of what I experienced,’” Garza said.
A review by the Texas A&M University System’s chief auditor determined Gomez made 211 potentially fraudulent purchases with the card between October 2023 and February 2025.
In all, officials identified questionable purchases by Gomez totaling $70,135.
Gomez, who has not been criminally charged, admitted that personal purchases were included in her expense reports, according to internal records.
Instead of turning in receipts for what she purchased, Gomez used the digital signature of her coworker on lost receipt forms without that person’s knowledge, and then used a coworker’s login credentials to approve her own expense reports, records show.
The investigation of Gomez was forwarded by university officials to the university’s police department the day she resigned and was investigated as possible forgery and credit card abuse, an incident report obtained by KSAT Investigates shows.
The case has since been handed off to the Texas State Auditor’s investigations team, an Texas A&M-San Antonio spokeswoman confirmed.
A spokesperson for the auditor’s office declined to comment in a phone call with KSAT, who described the matter a pending investigation.
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.
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