State controller advised to document travel expenses

Thursday, Aug. 30, 2001 | 9:34 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Travel on the state's dime must be for state business, says a letter sent by legislative leaders to Controller Kathy Augustine.

The letter was sent by Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, and Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas.

They told Augustine that the legislative budget committees were concerned that some of her past trips may not have benefited the controller's office.

During the 2001 Legislature, Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, referred to a legislative audit that said Augustine made 16 trips to such places as the United Blood Services, the Cambridge Community Outreach Center, the board of directors for the Nevada Ballet Theater, the Clark County Republican Party and the Women's History Project.

But Augustine, a Republican in her first term, said Wednesday there were eight round trips to Las Vegas to conduct business -- not 16 as suggested in the audit. She conceded there was no documentation to show that the trips were related to business.

But she also said that while she spoke to the groups mentioned in the audit, she conducted state business during the daytime and that she never used state travel for partisan politics.

Augustine said she now supplies adequate documentations when she travels to show she is on office business.

Raggio, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Arberry, chairman of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, told Augustine, "The money committees want to ensure that attendance at functions where travel expenses are incurred will specifically benefit the operation of the state controller's office."