AP INVESTIGATION: Palin charged state for children's travel, later amended expense reports

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AP INVESTIGATION: Palin charged state for children's travel, later
amended expense reports

By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE, ADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZO , Associated
Press

Last update: October 21, 2008 - 11:19 PM


ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her
children to travel with her, including to events where they were not
invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were
on official business.

The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three
daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race,
and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour
conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four
nights in a luxury hotel.

In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters'
64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office
in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for
hotel rooms for the girls.

Alaska law does not specifically address expenses for a governor's
children. The law allows for payment of expenses for anyone conducting
official state business.

As governor, Palin justified having the state pay for the travel of
her daughters — Bristol, 17; Willow, 14; and Piper, 7 — by noting on
travel forms that the girls had been invited to attend or participate
in events on the governor's schedule.

But some organizers of these events said they were surprised when the
Palin children showed up uninvited, or said they agreed to a request
by the governor to allow the children to attend.

Several other organizers said the children merely accompanied their
mother and did not participate. The trips enabled Palin, whose main
state office is in the capital of Juneau, to spend more time with her
children.

"She said any event she can take her kids to is an event she tries to
attend," said Jennifer McCarthy, who helped organize the June 2007
Family Day Celebration picnic in Ketchikan that Piper attended with
her parents.

State Finance Director Kim Garnero told The Associated Press she has
not reviewed the Palins' travel expense forms, so she could not say
whether the daughters' travel with their mother would meet the
definition of official business.

On Aug. 6, three weeks before Republican presidential nominee Sen.
John McCain chose Palin his running mate, and after Alaska reporters
asked for the records, Palin ordered changes to previously filed
expense reports for her daughters' travel.

In the amended reports, Palin added phrases such as "First Family
attending" and "First Family invited" to explain the girls'
attendance.

"The governor said, 'I want the purpose and the reason for this travel
to be clear,'" said Linda Perez, state director of administrative
services.

When Palin released her family's tax records as part of her vice
presidential campaign, some tax experts questioned why she did not
report the children's state travel reimbursements as income.

The Palins released a review by a Washington attorney who said state
law allows the children's travel expenses to be reimbursed and not
taxed when they conduct official state business.

Taylor Griffin, a McCain-Palin campaign spokesman, said Palin followed
state policy allowing governors to charge for their children's travel.
He said the governor's office has invitations requesting the family to
attend some events, but he said he did not have them to provide.

In October 2007, Palin brought daughter Bristol along on a trip to New
York for a women's leadership conference. Plane tickets from Anchorage
to La Guardia Airport for $1,385.11 were billed to the state, records
show, and mother and daughter shared a room for four nights at the
$707.29-per-night Essex House hotel, which overlooks Central Park.

The event's organizers said Palin asked if she could bring her
daughter.

Alexis Gelber, who organized Newsweek's Third Annual Women &
Leadership Conference, said she does not know how Bristol ended up
attending. Gelber said invitees usually attend alone, but some ask if
they can bring a relative or friend.

Griffin, the campaign spokesman, said he believes someone with the
event personally sent an e-mail to Bristol inviting her, but he did
not have it to provide. Records show Palin also met with Mayor Michael
Bloomberg and Goldman Sachs representatives and visited the New York
Stock Exchange.

In January, the governor, Willow and Piper showed up at the Alaska
Symphony of Seafood Buffet, an Anchorage gala to announce winners of
an earlier seafood competition.

"She was just there," said James Browning, executive director of
Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, which runs the event. Griffin
said the governor's office received an invitation that was not
specifically addressed to anyone.

When Palin amended her children's expense reports, she listed a role
for the two girls at the function — "to draw two separate raffle
tickets."

In the original travel form, Palin listed a number of events that her
children attended and said they were there "in official capacity
helping." She did not identify any specific roles for the girls.

In July, the governor charged the state $2,741.26 to take Bristol and
Piper to Philadelphia for a meeting of the National Governors
Association. The girls had their own room for five nights at the Ritz-
Carlton Hotel for $215.46 a night, expense records show.

Expense forms describe the girls' official purpose as "NGA Governor's
Youth Programs and family activities." But those programs were
activities designed to keep children busy, a service provided by the
NGA to accommodate governors and their families, NGA spokeswoman Jodi
Omear said.

In addition to the commercial flights, the children have traveled
dozens of times with Palin on a state plane. For these flights, the
total cost of operating the plane, at $971 an hour, was about $55,000,
according to state flight logs. The cost of operating the state plane
does not increase when the children join their mother.

The organizer of an American Heart Association luncheon on Feb. 15 in
Fairbanks said Palin asked to bring daughter Piper to the event, and
the organizer said she was surprised when Palin showed up with
daughters Willow and Bristol as well.

The three Palin daughters shared a room separate from their mother at
the Princess Lodge in Fairbanks for two nights, at a cost to the state
of $129 per night.

The luncheon took place before Palin's husband, Todd, finished fourth
in the 2,000-mile Iron Dog snowmobile race, also in Fairbanks. The
family greeted him at the finish line.

When Palin showed up at the luncheon with not just Piper but also
Willow and Bristol, organizers had to scramble to make room at the
main table, said Janet Bartels, who set up the event.

"When it's the governor, you just make it happen," she said.

The state is already reviewing nearly $17,000 in per diem payments to
Palin for more than 300 nights she slept at her own home, 40 miles
from her satellite office in Anchorage.

Tony Knowles, a Democratic former governor of Alaska who lost to Palin
in a 2006 bid to reclaim the job, said he never charged the state for
his three children's commercial flights or claimed their travel as
official state business.

Knowles, who was governor from 1994 to 2002, is the only other recent
Alaska governor who had school-age children while in office.

"There was no valid reason for the children to be along on state
business," said Knowles, a supporter of Democratic presidential
nominee Barack Obama. "I cannot recall any instance during my eight
years as governor where it would have been appropriate to claim they
performed state business."

Knowles said he brought his children to one NGA event while in office
but didn't charge the state for their trip.

In February 2007, the three girls flew from Juneau to Anchorage on
Alaska Airlines. Palin charged the state for the $519.30 round-trip
ticket for each girl, and noted on the expense form that the daughters
accompanied her to "open the start of the Iron Dog race."

The children and their mother then watched as Todd Palin and other
racers started the competition, which Todd won that year. Palin later
had the relevant expense forms changed to describe the girls' business
as "First Family official starter for the start of the Iron Dog race."

The Palins began charging the state for commercial flights after the
governor kept a 2006 campaign promise to sell a jet bought by her
predecessor.

Palin put the jet up for sale on eBay, a move she later trumpeted in
her star-making speech at the Republican National Convention, and it
was ultimately sold by the state at a loss.

That left only one high-performance aircraft deemed safe enough for
her to use — a 1980 twin-engine King Air assigned to the public safety
agency but, according to flight logs, out of service for maintenance
and repairs about a third of the time Palin has been governor.

http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/president/31830179.html