Travel costs scrutinized State trips cost $4.8 million

AUGUSTA – At least $4.8 million has been spent by state government, including programs and state-funded agencies, for out-of-state travel in the first three quarters of the current state fiscal year, which ends June 30.

But more exact figures are unavailable because several state agencies have not followed a decade-old law requiring them to file detailed quarterly reports on out-of-state travel with the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee. There is no penalty for failure to comply with the requirement.

“Our staff has sent reminders, several of them, to state agencies to file these reports,” Sen. Jill Goldthwait, an independent from Bar Harbor and co-chairwoman of the panel, said last week. “But as you have seen, not all are following the law.”

The requirement was added to the state budget law after the severe budget problems of the early 1990s. Lawmakers and then-Gov. John McKernan banned all out-of-state travel without prior approval as part of the belt tightening, cuts and taxes needed to close a billion-dollar budget gap.

“We had to do a lot of things to balance the budget then,” Rep. Joseph Brannigan, D-Portland, said. “As I recall, we put this reporting language into the budget for accountability.”

Brannigan was then a state senator and co-chaired the panel. He said a lot of out-of-state travel is warranted, but the Appropriations Committee is responsible to taxpayers to review all expenditures, and without agencies filing the reports, the committee sees only the bottom-line numbers they can retrieve from the controller’s computer files.

“I’ll see that it is taken care of,” Gov. Angus King said Thursday. “You want to look at every place that you spend money, whether it is rent, heat or travel. And you can’t determine if the expense is warranted if they are not filing the reports.”

King said he is convinced that most out-of-state travel is “probably” warranted. He said he has found meetings of the National Governors’ Association helpful, and he believes it is important for representatives from Maine to attend national meetings.

But how many does it take to adequately represent the state?

“That is a difficult question,” King said, “and that is why it is important that these reports be filed.”

For example, the Legislature sent 35 lawmakers and staff last fall to a National Conference of State Legislators meeting in Chicago. The Maine State Housing Authority sent 14 members of its staff to a meeting last summer in San Francisco.

And then there is the out-of-state travel paid by the University of Maine for athletic teams to compete, where one football game can cost more than $30,000 in travel expenses.

“Well, that’s something I hope the university is watching,” Goldthwait said. “With everything else we have to do in working on the budget, we really don’t spend much time reviewing these reports.

“I look at them when they come across my desk, and I know others on the committee do, but no, we don’t look at them in a systematic way and yes, we should.”

Rep. Tom Winsor, R-Norway, also a committee member, agreed. He said the committee plans to spend some time this summer reviewing various financial issues, and developing better accountability for tax dollars is one of his goals.

“There are only so many hours in the day, and when we are doing the budget, it takes up all of our time and more,” he said. “Do we spend the time on this that we should? Probably not. Do I wish we had more time to spend on it? Yes, I do.”

But Winsor said he did not want to start “micromanaging” state agencies. He said department heads and the boards that oversee semi-independent agencies benefit from the requirement to submit the reports.

Brannigan agreed.

“That is part of why we put this in the budget,” he said. “Just having to file a report hopefully makes them think about what it is they are doing.”

Most of the scores of agencies required to file the reports have done so, even when they had no expenditures in the quarter. And some reports have been late and not exactly in the form requested by the staff of the Appropriations Committee.

But some agencies have filed no reports this fiscal year.

They are: The Center for Innovation, the Maine International Trade Center, the Maine Historical Society, Maine Public Broadcasting Corp., the Maine Sardine Council, the Maine Science and Technology Foundation, the Maine Turnpike Authority, the Department of the Treasury, and the Maine World Trade Association.