Once in January and again in March, a top employee in the taxpayer-funded Citizen-Soldier Support Program drove from her home in northern Virginia to Chapel Hill and got reimbursed for mileage.

But then an odd thing happened. Rather than use her personal vehicle to attend meetings in the area, she rented a car and expensed it, apparently leaving her own car unused.

The tab for both trips: $619.39. CSSP officials say state law bars them from giving an explanation.

The arrangement is an example of the type of activity that raised concerns from officials at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill last year (read Carolina Journal’s full coverage here).

Housed under the Odum Institute for Research and Social Science at UNC-Chapel Hill, CSSP is funded by a $10 million federal defense appropriation. Its goal is to assist combat veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

But an internal review by UNC officials painted a much different picture — one of high salaries, expensive travel, and ill-defined work duties.

The program got a facelift in November, shedding employees and slashing its budget, but an examination of recent travel records by CJ indicates that, in some instances, unexplained travel continues.

Susan-Kerner Hoeg, until recently CSSP’s director of military relations, put in for the rental cars. By arrangement with the university, she worked from her home in Annandale, Va., and traveled periodically to the program’s headquarters in Chapel Hill.

Asked why her personal vehicle wasn’t available, CSSP’s executive director, Bob Goodale, said the information couldn’t be released under public records laws.

“We can’t [disclose it], and that’s just what it is,” Goodale said. “I can’t comment further than that.”

In an e-mail, Goodale said that he had deemed the arrangement “the most cost-effective way for our office to support her university business activities for both trips.”

The reason why Kerner-Hoeg’s personal vehicle wasn’t available is a personnel record not subject to disclosure, officials say. Only specific employee information — such as salary and age — can be made public.

“All other information specific to an employee is part of his or her personnel file and is confidential with few exceptions,” said Regina Stabile, an attorney with UNC-Chapel Hill.

In a previous interview, CSSP’s principal investigator, Peter Leousis, said that Kerner-Hoeg uses a rental car when “state cars are not available or when a car is needed after UNC motor pool hours.” When she isn’t required to travel to off-site meetings, she uses Chapel Hill’s free transit system, he said.

Between 2007 and 2009, Kerner-Hoeg booked $22,181 in commercial airline flights to the Triangle and charged about $5,400 for mileage. On average, she traveled to Chapel Hill two to three times a month until Goodale scaled back her travel late last year.

An internal UNC-Chapel Hill audit found that CSSP’s travel reimbursements for Kerner-Hoeg were appropriate based on her arrangement to work from home in Virginia.

Records show that Kerner-Hoeg traveled far less in 2010 compared to past years, getting reimbursed for almost $3,000 in mileage, lodging, and meals. On one occasion, the U.S. Army picked up her tab for lodging and airfare for a trip to Phoenix, Ariz.

Kerner-Hoeg left the program June 30.

David N. Bass is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.