Will JLT Take Flight?
I need to make a point of clarification in yesterday’s post. I talked about Jill Long Thompson’s campaign’s criticism of Governor Mitch Daniels’ travel on the day the stock market lost nearly 800 points. First, I think her staff should have waited to make a big deal out of this on another news day. More importantly, JLT’s campaign is basically saying the Governor used taxpayer money to attend non-governmental functions.
However, the rules on travel are not as clear as JLT would probably like for them to be. In JLT’s news release she cites the following statute…
“According to state law (IAC 1-5-12), a state officer, employee or special state appointee shall not make use of state materials, funds, property, personnel, facilities or equipment for any purpose other than for official state business unless the use is expressly permitted by a general written agency, departmental or institutional policy or regulation.”
When I asked JLT’s staff if they got a copy of the administrative rules to see if any of the Governor’s non-state travel might fall into an exemption, they told me “no.” It would have made more sense to have a copy of the rules ready and just to have all the bases covered. Because if the Governor’s non-state business travel is covered by the exemption, someone is going to be looking real silly.
