Trip West Cost Pa. Taxpayers $130,000: Legislators Called the Aug. Conference a Valuable Learning Tool. A Critic Said: &Quot;It’s Just Plain Arrogance
By Mario F. Cattabiani and Angela Couloumbis, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Feb. 6–HARRISBURG — State Rep. Mark Cohen likes his conferences.
In August, the Philadelphia Democrat spent 10 days in Seattle attending back-to-back-to-back conventions, including one for state-government reporters.
He billed taxpayers for it all.
Cohen’s trip cost the state about $4,700, the most of any member of the Pennsylvania delegation to travel to the Pacific Northwest for the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
He was joined by 30 other Pennsylvania legislators and 40 Harrisburg aides and bureaucrats, who, combined, spent at least $130,000 on airfare, hotels and meals, a review of state expense records shows.
The price tag for the Seattle conference, which some criticized as wasteful at the time, is coming into focus as reimbursements to legislators have been trickling in to Capitol bookkeepers since the convention ended.
The conference came a month after legislators had approved a salary increase for themselves, touching off months of public outcry that prompted the General Assembly to repeal the raises in November.
Legislators who attended the Seattle conference praised it as a valuable learning tool, saying it allowed them to meet lawmakers from other states and get ideas for legislation that can benefit their constituents back home.
But John DiPrimio, chairman of Citizens for Common Sense, a Jenkintown-based government-watchdog group, called the overall bill “an obscene amount of money in anyone’s book.”
“There is no need for that number of legislators to go out on this junket,” he said. “It’s just plain arrogance. These are the people who are supposed to be the servants of the people. They are turning the tables around and saying we the people are now their servants.”
While in Seattle, legislators attended seminars dealing with legislative topics such as the skyrocketing costs of pensions and stem-cell research.
But it wasn’t all work.
While there, lawmakers were also treated to a Mariners baseball game and sightseeing tours, and were wined and dined by major corporations and lobbyists.
A review of the expenses shows that most legislators and their aides billed the state for airfare, conference registration, meals and transportation while in town.
Many lawmakers were reimbursed a flat $204 per day by the state to cover meals and lodging. Others billed the state for their actual expenses.
House Minority Leader Bill DeWeese (D., Greene), the delegation’s highest-ranking legislator, didn’t charge the state for any portion of the trip. Instead, he paid for it from his campaign account because he did not attend many of the conference’s seminars.
DeWeese said that most of the events he attended in Seattle were “of a political nature rather than of a governmental nature,” and therefore it was more appropriate to use campaign dollars to cover his roughly $1,700 in expenses.
“I was out there in a political mode,” he said.
Rep. Babette Josephs (D., Phila.) paid for the entire trip out of her own pocket.
She said it wouldn’t be fair for taxpayers to pick up the tab because she spent part of her stay in Seattle sightseeing.
Still, like others who attended, she defended the overall cost to the state, saying that such conventions provided invaluable information to lawmakers with an interest in the often complex issues facing Pennsylvania and other states across the nation.
“It’s cheap at twice the price,” she added.
State Rep. James R. Roebuck Jr. (D., Phila.), who is seeking reimbursement for the trip’s cost, echoed the sentiment.
“I admit it’s a lot of money. But I know I get value out of it,” said Roebuck, the ranking Democrat on the House Education Committee. Philadelphia, Roebuck said, will host the National Conference of State Legislatures annual meeting in two years, bringing with it an estimated $22 million in economic benefit to the city. He said he can’t expect legislators from other states to travel here if Pennsylvania House and Senate members don’t lead by example.
“If I don’t go to these conferences, no one will come to Philadelphia,” he said.
For his part, Cohen arrived in Seattle on Aug. 11, four days before the conference start, to attend a labor convention hosted by the AFL-CIO and other union groups. After that, he spent four days attending seminars at the conference.
And for the final two days of his trip, Cohen sat through lectures at the annual meeting of the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors, a group made up of journalists who cover state government.
Cohen, who as caucus chairman is the third-ranking Democrat in the House, was the only legislator from Pennsylvania to attend either the labor or journalism conference.
Asked whether he was thinking about changing estates and joining the Fourth, Cohen said it wasn’t likely. And he defended billing taxpayers for the journalism conference — about $400 — this way: “I thought it was worthwhile to get insight into how journalists function throughout the country.”
Cohen also reasoned that he got the most bang for the state’s buck by attending three conferences on one $898 round-trip airfare.
“It seemed to me to be a pretty efficient use of resources,” he said. “It’s important for legislators to gain competence in the field of legislation… . This is a job that requires knowledge.”
What’s more, he said, all of those conferences ate into two of his weekends off.
He later thanked a reporter for pointing out that he had not filed for reimbursement for one night’s hotel stay during the conference. Cohen explained it as an accounting oversight, and said he would now seek reimbursement for an additional $231.
Contact staff writer Mario F. Cattabiani at 717-787-5990 or mcattabiani@phillynews.com.
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