Thursday, April 16, 1998 | 10:06 a.m.
An apologetic Gov. Bob Miller Wednesday disclosed 10 more privately funded trips he took outside Nevada in 1996 and 1997 on official business for the National Governors Association.
Miller, who served as vice chairman and chairman of the influential governors association during those two years, made the disclosures in amended financial statements with the Nevada Ethics Commission.
He also listed seven more political trips, including several related to President Clinton's 1996 re-election, that were financed by a once-secret $71,000 trust of private donations.
In all, about $48,000 more in trips were disclosed by the governor on the amended statements, bringing the total to above $56,000.
Listed in the newly revealed trips was more than $5,000 Miller charged to the fund for traveling within the state.
The governor acknowledged in an interview with the SUN Wednesday that he had erred by failing to disclose the majority of his trips.
Miller listed only $8,310 in travel expenses from the private fund in his original 1997 financial disclosure statement on March 31. It was the first time the existence of the fund was made public.
The governor failed to list more than $41,000 in trips on his original 1996 financial statement.
Funds for the private trust were raised in the summer of 1996, primarily from the gaming industry, a longtime political supporter of the governor's.
The money was raised after Miller had won permission from the Interim Finance Committee to transfer $29,000 in unspent salaries in his office to his out-of-state travel budget. The $29,000 was used to augment a $10,300 travel budget for the 1995-96 fiscal year.
Miller, records show, ended up spending $37,880 in taxpayer money on traveling outside Nevada that year.
Miller Press Secretary Richard Urey has previously indicated the governor had sought to establish the private trust because campaign funds, normally used for such trips, had run out and the governor did not want to burden the taxpayers with his travels.
Urey said today that the governor sought the additional $29,000 from the state because he was being forced to do an unusual amount of traveling to Washington in 1995 and 1996 to assist the NGA in discussions on Medicaid and welfare reform, both issues crucial to the state.
At the time the Interim Finance Committee approved the $29,000 transfer in March 1996, the SUN reported that Miller had been out of the state on 10 trips in the previous four months.
Urey said Miller didn't go back to the Legislature for additional travel funds for fiscal year 1996-97 after he became chairman of the NGA because he had access to the private trust and a limited travel budget from the NGA.
Listed in his new disclosures were expenses for $6,728 for an NGA meeting in West Virginia and bills for two trips to Washington on NGA business, one for $7,177 and another for $6,508.
Included in his never-before reported political trips was a $12,100 tab to attend the Democratic National Convention in Chicago with his family and staff in August 1996.
Miller also spent $347 in trust money traveling with President Clinton to Mexico in 1997.
He also spent more than $2,000 on several Clinton campaign events in 1996, including helping the president celebrate his 50th birthday
And Miller used $4,560 to travel to Washington in January 1997 to attend the president's inauguration.
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