GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin bills herself as a reformer who won't ask taxpayers to pay for unneeded spending. A Tuesday morning
Washington Post piece leads this way:
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.
How does she do this? Her official "duty station" is in Juneau, so when she works out of the Anchorage office, which she often does, she can charge a per diem rate. And every time the hubby and kids travel with her to Juneau, they can charge the state for travel -- and they did charge the state, $43,490 in the first year and a half in office,
The Post said. In fairness, it is a heck of a long way from Anchorage to Juneau -- about 600 miles. It is about the same distance as Atlanta is from Baltimore.
Alaskan taxpayers paid for a lot of other travel,
The Post said:
Flights topped the list for the most expensive items, and the daughter whose bill was the highest was Piper, 7, whose flights cost nearly $11,000, while Willow, 14, claimed about $6,000 and Bristol, 17, accounted for about $3,400.
Per diem expenses are a great story in any state. Take a special look at any European trips taken in the last year -- expenses will be high because the exchange rate was so awful for Americans. Ask what taxpayers got from the trips. Is there any proof that a governor's trip abroad does anything to increase trade, exports or lure jobs and investment? Take a look at the expenses filed by legislators and governors and other elected officials. Who claims the most and why?
Here are some of the juicier governor and state government travel stories of late:
Here is what it looks like when journalists look into state lawmaker per diems.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review discovered the Pennsylvania legislature kept secret databases that showed:
On top of a base salary of $61,890, rank-and-file lawmakers are allowed to charge the state for travel; district offices; newsletters; a state-paid rental car or mileage; and meals, flowers and flags for constituents. Legislators also may receive a "per diem," or a flat payment of $124 to cover expenses for each day spent in Harrisburg or on state business. They don't have to account for how they spend the per diems.
The Senate also keeps expense data secret. The 50 senators receive monthly "management reports" showing how much they've spent from various accounts, said Russell Faber, the Senate's chief clerk. The Senate clerk's office does not keep copies, Faber said.
The last report of the year includes each senator's spending totals, Faber said, adding that they could not be reproduced without "significant programming."
Even if those figures existed in electronic form, they wouldn't be public: Neither the House nor the Senate releases electronic records.
Here is a link from the National Conference of State...
