AUGUSTA — Earlier this month, the assistant House majority leader took some heat for getting reimbursed more than $2,100 to attend a pair of conferences this summer in New Orleans.
Critics were upset that taxpayers paid for Rep. Andre Cushing, R-Hampden, to participate in a conference held by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a national organization funded by corporate donors that provides model legislation to state lawmakers, Republicans in particular.
A review of state records over the past three and half years shows that lawmakers’ participation in what some may perceive as partisan events is indeed rare. But perhaps more striking is how infrequently new Republican leaders are asking taxpayers to reimburse lawmakers who attend out-of-state junkets.
All out-of-state travel is authorized by the speaker of the House and the Senate president. Each draw from a budget in the state’s biennial spending plan.
Lawmakers’ travel spending is a fraction of the state budget. In June, lawmakers allocated $163,854 toward legislative travel in the $6.1 billion state budget. That figure is 30 percent less than what was allocated in 2010-11.
The way things are tracking, lawmakers will spend far less than what’s budgeted.
House Speaker Robert Nutting, R-Oakland, and Senate President Kevin Raye, R-Perry, have authorized about $5,000 in out-of-state travel expenses since January. Roughly half of that was for trips taken between October and December 2010, before the GOP took over the Legislature. Some of the trips reimbursed travel expenses for Democratic lawmakers.
Another $2,100 was approved for Cushing’s trip to the ALEC conference and a separate event hosted by the National Conference of State Legislatures, a nonpartisan organization that provides training and policy seminars to lawmakers.
“We have tried very hard to limit travel to things where we think there’s a genuine educational value or benefit to our members,” said Nutting, adding that he has turned down several lawmakers’ requests.
“I’m pretty tightfisted,” he said.
With three months left in 2011, Nutting and Raye would have to significantly increase travel expenditures to equal what their Democratic predecessors have previously authorized.
In fiscal years 2010 and 2011, former Democratic House Speaker Hannah Pingree and Senate President Elizabeth Mitchell signed off on a combined $30,000 — about $15,000 per year — in travel expenses for trips to National Conference of State Legislatures and Council of State Governments events.
The figure could arm critics of previous Democratic leadership, but the total was well under the approximately $210,000 budgeted for that biennium. Nutting credited Pingree more frugal policy on lawmakers’ travel.
“In fairness to my predecessor, Speaker Pingree, I believe she began to tighten the knot,” Nutting said.
While the expenditures are a fraction of the state budget, Nutting said taxpayers shouldn’t be asked to pay for junkets that can sometimes be “part work, part fun.”
“Businesspeople do those kinds of trips all the time,” he said. “But running a state government with taxpayer money, we just don’t do that anymore.”
But some did.
In 2005, former House Speaker John Richardson, D-Brunswick, allowed a group of 32 lawmakers and other staff to attend an NCSL conference in Nashville, Tenn. The cost for that one event was $58,034.
The 2005 Nashville conference was the highest expenditure for a single event between 2000 and 2006. Other NCSL conferences drew between $6,937 and $42,845.
Not only were NCSL events more expensive, but lawmakers were allowed to attend more conferences hosted by other organizations.
Between 2006 and 2008, the Legislature spent an average of $100,000 per year on out-of-state travel. The type of events lawmakers attended varied.
In 2008, Sen. Stan Gerzofsky, D-Brunswick, a former chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee, was reimbursed for an event hosted by the National Criminal Justice Association. That same year, Rep. John Martin, D-Eagle Lake, was reimbursed for a trip to an event in Quebec City celebrating the 400th birthday of the Quebec province.
By far, the most heavily attended junkets have been hosted by the National Conference of State Legislatures and the Council of State Governments.
A review of state travel records from 2008 showed only two instances in which lawmakers were reimbursed for participating in conferences with partisan bents.
The first was a $108 reimbursement to Sen. Margaret Craven, D-Lewiston, who attended a conference in Las Vegas hosted by the Progressive States Network.
The second was Cushing’s $1,500 ALEC trip to New Orleans.
Nonetheless, the overall trend is away from out-of-state travel. Nutting said part of that is because the National Conference of State Legislatures and the Council of State Governments understand that times are tough for state governments and they often offer deals that pay a portion of a lawmaker’s airfare.
Nutting said he intended to make sure he authorized far less travel than he’s allowed to spend.
“I can assure you that we won’t make our target,” he said. “In the old days we used to send people everywhere. But the old days are gone when you send a couple dozen legislators and you bus them to Quebec and truck them to Disney World or something.”
smistler@sunjournal.com
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