Note to readers • This story has been updated to include information provided by The University of Utah after its initial publication.

Few rules limit the travel of Utah’s public university presidents.

There’s no cap for how many trips a president can take or how much they can spend. And nothing restricts where they can go as long as there is a “business purpose.”

But now, they face a new requirement for transparency — when their spouse accompanies them on trips, they must track and disclose how much public money was spent on their partner.

The Utah Board of Higher Education voted to add this accountability policy this spring, after The Salt Lake Tribune asked for past audits of travel by university presidents.

University of Utah president Taylor Randall is the only public school president in the state whose spouse frequently travels with him, those records indicate.

Travel is key to Randall’s many roles as the university’s leader, the U. said, including CEO, chief donor relations officer and top ambassador for an institution with a $9 billion annual budget. As the president’s spouse and as an alumnus of the school, Janet Randall travels with him as an “official ambassador for the institution,” the school added.

Taylor Randall has taken Janet Randall on roughly half — or 42 of 89 — of his official out-of-state trips since he started in his position in August 2021, the audits showed. Her travel includes 10 of the 12 overseas trips Taylor Randall had taken up until the period covered by the most recent internal audit, which ended June 30, 2025.

For the past two years, the U.’s expenses for her to join him, including airfare and meals, tallied up to more than $35,000 — funded by a mix of taxpayer money, donations and other university funds.

However, it is not possible to specify the total amount of public dollars spent on Janet Randall — as the new statewide policy will now require going forward — based on the information the U. includes in its internal audits.

Information the U. provided to The Tribune also did not include the detail required to determine the total that taxpayers spent on Janet Randall’s travel.

The limited information included:

• According to the U.’s audits, taxpayers were the sole funding source for nine of the Randalls’ 25 joint trips in fiscal 2024 and 2025. Janet Randall’s costs totaled $9,502 for those trips, the U. said, which included Japan, Palm Springs, Palm Beach, other American cities and multiple trips to Washington D.C.

• Taxpayers also contributed an unspecified amount to her travel to Germany; and paid an unspecified amount toward her $503 in costs for a New York City trip, the U. said.

• Only two of the 25 trips she took in the past two years were documented as fully funded by donors, according to the audits and the U.

• The U. paid for other trips using what were described as non-state, unrestricted funds. Those funds can include donations, the U. said.

In a public records request, The Tribune had asked for receipts documenting all of Taylor Randall’s travel, but the U. declined. Instead, the school initially said it would provide the annual reports it was required to give in past years to the Utah System of Higher Education.

“We provided the documentation required by law,” the U. said in its statement.

After this story published online, the U. disclosed further information Monday and Tuesday.

The Randalls paid $29,400 in out-of-pocket expenses toward four of Janet Randall’s trips in fiscal 2024 and 2025, in addition to the $35,000 mix of taxpayer and university funds spent, the U. said.

Absent of much state-level policy, the U. gives significant control to its president over trips. “The university president may approve the president’s own travel and travel reimbursements,” the school’s policy states.

Taylor Randall’s travel expenses are audited each year by the university’s internal auditor, the school noted, and those audits are reviewed by the trustee audit committee before they are submitted to the Utah Board of Higher Education.

One sentence in the policy allows the U. to cover the expenses of a “guest traveler” who accompanies a university employee if they are “traveling on behalf of” but “not employed” by the school, which the university said applies to Janet Randall.

In an interview, Utah’s commissioner over public higher education, Geoff Landward, openly questioned the state higher education board’s lack of scrutiny of spousal travel: “Why didn’t we have a policy in the first place?”

‘He doesn’t need to be sitting at a desk’

Janet Randall has gone with Taylor Randall to, among other places, Mongolia, South Korea, Ireland, Spain and France, as well as Mexico twice.

The two attended the 2025 inauguration for U.S. President Donald Trump together, at the request of Utah Sen. Mike Lee, according to the records reviewed by The Tribune. That trip alone, paid for by the university, cost a combined $8,500 for the couple; the U. said the visit also included meetings with donors in the nation’s capital.

Such meetings with donors during the Randalls’ travels, the U. says, led to finalizing a $25 million donation from the Lassonde family and another $25 million donation from the Marriott family.

Taylor Randall has made travel a priority: He’s set new records for traveling the most of any of the other public university and college presidents in the state. He’s also taken the most international trips and spent the most money. He’s far surpassed, too, the travel of past U. presidents.

He spent 73 days traveling out-of-state in fiscal 2025 and 90 days traveling out-of-state in fiscal 2024. That’s about a quarter of each year.

Travel, according to the U.’s statement, is necessary to attend national conferences and maintain relationships with donors, alumni and elected government leaders.

“He doesn’t need to be sitting at a desk to run the university,” the school said in a statement. “… President Randall spends the majority of his time on the road traveling on behalf of the institution.”

Janet Randall’s role

Janet Randall is not employed by the university in any capacity, though she does have a university assistant assigned to her. As a U. ambassador, “Mrs. Randall travels with President Taylor Randall as much as she can,” the university said in a statement. “This includes to Utah Athletics competitions, donor visits, alumni gatherings and official academic meetings.”

Additionally, the university said that “many of the events President Randall attends include spouse and/or partner tracks.” That includes conferences with the Association of American Universities, which is made up of research schools, or the U.’s Tanner Lecture Series, which takes place at a different location each year.

When there is an official role for Janet Randall, the U. said, the university pays for her travel. If there isn’t a role for her, the Randalls cover her costs.

The most expensive trip of fiscal 2024, totaling $21,873 for the couple, was a week the Randalls spent in Spain for the Tanner Lecture Series in June. All of those expenses were paid in full by donor funding.

That trip was a source of frustration for some U. staff and faculty, because it came at the same time the university was enacting the state’s newly required anti-diversity, equity and inclusion policies. That meant employees were closing down cultural centers as Taylor and Janet Randall could be seen oceanside in pictures posted online.

After this story was initially published online, the U. said that the process of implementing those changes took months, and the U.’s employees were “able to manage the HB261 transition without President Randall’s presence.”

Janet Randall also went to the Olympic Games in Paris, France, with Taylor Randall in July 2024 for nine days; Taylor Randall is considered a representative of the state’s team for when the Winter Olympics return to Utah in 2034. Their trip cost the U. a total of $18,412 in university funds.

After publication, the school said the Randalls personally paid $11,107 for Janet Randall’s flight and paid an additional $6,800 toward other costs.

In 2025, she joined her husband on a visit to the U.’s campus in South Korea, which included its 10th anniversary celebration, and a stop in Mongolia to talk to researchers.

The U. said that involved a Utah state trade mission where the spouses of state officials also attended, including first lady Abby Cox. The U. paid $23,149 in university funds for its presidential couple.

And Janet Randall went to Ireland, too, to meet with officials from the University of Galway in October 2024. The U. paid a total of $10,959 for the couple. The Randalls also paid $10,020 out of pocket for Janet Randall’s flight, in addition to the U.’s costs.

Weber State and Utah State University presidents joined the Ireland trip, too, according to their separate travel audits. Those don’t note accompanying spouses.

USU’s report noted the U. had offered to cover those presidents’ airfare, but then only covered plane tickets for the state lawmakers who came.

‘There was a policy gap here’

James Finkelstein, an academic renowned for his work at George Mason University researching presidential compensation and contracts, said while it’s not uncommon for presidential spouses to join trips, he’s troubled by the amount spent for Janet Randall’s travel.

It “seems excessive,” he said.

Taylor Randall, Finkelstein noted, also makes more than any president in the state, with his compensation topping $1 million annually. He said Randall should use his own resources, rather than the university’s, to cover her costs out of pocket.

“If it is merely to attend an international conference, I can’t imagine how spousal/partner travel benefits the university,” Finkelstein added.

Brendan Cantwell, a distinguished professor at Michigan State University who studies higher education finances, said, “It’s likely that presidents’ spouses often do a lot of uncompensated work on behalf of the university.”

But he said there should be some kind of rule or policy directing what’s appropriate for travel to avoid abuse.

“How often should the president’s spouse travel on university business and what should it cost overall? Those are good questions,” he said.

Spousal travel policies vary for presidents at universities across the country. St. Lawrence University, in New York, says spousal travel will not be paid for by the university.

Wayne State University, in Michigan, says a president’s partner can only be reimbursed for travel costs if that partner had “a significant role in the activity or event, or when protocol or tradition dictates attendance.” The school also requires significant documentation.

Finkelstein said it’s “problematic” for presidents to have company on international trips. Airfare costs are expensive, and unless another country has a custom that spouses should be present, he said, it’s not always clear what their role is — and looks a lot like a free vacation on the public’s dime.

“Lots of presidents have gotten into trouble for living lavishly while traveling,” Finkelstein added.

That included the president of Northern Arizona University, where a state audit found she and her husband spent more than $40,000 in “inappropriate” travel expenses.

The U. declined to state what class of airfare Taylor Randall traveled in or what types of hotels he booked. But flights, overall, amounted for roughly 60% of his travel expenses each year. Lodging was about 25%.

In March, members of the Utah Board of Higher Education did not comment as they approved their new policy requiring additional documentation.

Going forward, each school will need to note which travel a president’s spouse attended and detail costs for that accompaniment.

There must also be a “bona fide business purpose” for the spouse. That does not include: “duties of a clerical, secretarial, or medical nature or where the purpose of the travel is familial, social, tourist, or incidental.”

The costs also need to be approved by “a relevant administrator other than the president” before reimbursement.

Landward acknowledged: “There was a policy gap here.”

Finkelstein believes a school’s board of trustees or a state’s higher education board should need to approve trips ahead of time — a step farther than the new rule, which asks for documentation afterward.

Utah’s policies for presidential travel, and spending overall, continue to be lax, he said, providing limited accountability after money is already spent.

Breaking down the numbers

In Utah, each public school’s board of trustees must submit reports by January 15 that list all out-of-state trips each president took during the prior fiscal year and detail how much the university spent on lodging, transportation and meals.

It’s one of the few presidential policies that requires any auditing of travel, though the reports are still largely rubber-stamped without comment or debate. (In-state travel is not included and has no set process for review.)

Four of those reports reflect Randall’s time in office, documenting his travel in fiscal 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.

The Tribune reviewed those and more than 50 pages of travel reports for all of the other traditional higher education presidents in the state.

The U.’s reports include only a total of what the school spent for each trip and do not describe Janet Randall’s specific share of the costs.

In response to The Tribune’s request, the U. provided total costs for Janet Randall over the past two fiscal years, but did not fully break those figures down by meals or airfare or other costs, or by trip, or by funding source.

• For fiscal 2024, the president’s travel totaled $98,957 in university expenses. The U. says Janet Randall’s share accounted for $25,788 of that.

• For fiscal 2025, the president’s travel totaled $87,807 in university expenses. The U. says Janet Randall’s share accounted for $9,308 of that.

Overall, $186,765 was spent on the president’s travel for those two years. In that window, Janet Randall joined 25 of her husband’s 46 trips, including eight of his nine international trips.

Janet Randall joined the more expensive of Taylor Randall’s trips, including most of his international travel, The Tribune found. The average cost of a trip she joined was $6,364, based on the total for those trips, $159,124.

The average cost of a trip that she did not join was significantly lower, roughly $1,316.

The report for fiscal 2023 notes that Janet Randall was planning to accompany her husband on a trip from Texas to Washington, D.C., but was ultimately not “able to make the Dallas leg.”

Her flight was canceled but not refunded, and the U. covered the cost. Again, it’s not delineated what her share was, but the total listed for airfare for that trip was $2,679, including the canceled ticket.

How the U.’s costs compare to other schools

Only one other Utah president’s report noted a spouse joining a trip, but it wasn’t actually for official business as president — yet.

Twice, Utah Tech University President Shane Smeed’s wife, Angela Smeed, accompanied him to Utah: First, when he was interviewing for the job, and then later, when he attended the school’s April and May 2025 graduation ceremonies. The total for the two of them to travel to St. George was $4,657.

Janet Randall’s travel expenses surpassed most of the other state presidents’ travel spending.

In fiscal 2024, her $25,788 in travel costs amounted to more than what six of Utah’s other seven public school presidents at the time spent. Only then-USU President Elizabeth “Betsy” Cantwell spent more ($32,558 on 12 out-of-state trips).

Cantwell separately came under fire for excessive purchases during her brief time leading the northern Utah school, including spending more than $660,000 in public funds on cars, travel and an apartment in Salt Lake City over her 18-month tenure.

USU’s trustees have vowed to more closely monitor its new president’s spending and trips.

Cantwell’s travels, overall, only once mentioned bringing her spouse. That was in 2023, when she was interviewing for the job and visiting Logan.

For fiscal 2025, Janet Randall’s $9,308 in university travel costs outpaced three of Utah’s seven other presidents.

But one of those schools, Utah Valley University, noted in its annual audit that the $11,989 spent by then-President Astrid Tuminez was entirely covered by the university’s foundation, with no public funds spent.

Like the Randalls, Tuminez was also invited to Trump’s 2025 inauguration. But she later canceled her ticket and hotel room; the foundation absorbed those costs.

Other presidents typically traveled to sporting events for their school’s teams and donor meetings. Southern Utah University’s president, Mindy Benson, took only one out-of-state trip for fiscal 2025, visiting Nevada for a basketball tournament, which cost $221.

President Randall also spent much more than previous U. presidents. At most, his predecessor Ruth Watkins spent $51,216 in fiscal 2019, before a lull in travel that came with the pandemic. She rarely traveled with her husband, the U. acknowledged.

Prior to that, then-U. President David Pershing spent a total of $13,848 on travel for fiscal 2018.

Correction • May 19, 9:43 a.m.: The story has been updated to correct the source of funding for $35,000 in expenses the University of Utah attributed to Janet Randall’s travel, which includes taxpayer money, donations and other university funds. It has also been updated to include the source of funding for the Randalls’ trip to Spain, which was covered by donors. This story also was updated May 21 at 4:40 p.m. after the U. corrected information it had previously provided about a trip to Los Cabos; no taxpayer funds were used for Janet Randall on that trip, the school said.