Posted on 03/05/2004 7:11:05 PM PST by Indy Pendance
70-mile commute from Fond du Lac is personal travel, officials say
Madison - The 70-mile commute Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager made in a state-owned car between her Fond du Lac home and Capitol office is personal travel that requires reimbursement to the state at 32.5 cents a mile, state officials have told her.
In a letter to the attorney general, Department of Administration attorney John Rothschild said that no mileage logs or monthly reports filed by Lautenschlager in 2003 noted any "personal miles driven" that would require reimbursement by the attorney general.
"I would ask you to review the mileage reports which you filed with the Department of Administration and file any amended reports you deem appropriate," Rothschild told Lautenschlager.
By filing reports that said none of the 20,000 miles she drove in a state-owned car involved personal travel, Lautenschlager was treating her Fond du Lac home as her official headquarters, which her staff had told her was acceptable.
Lautenschlager has acknowledged using the state car to drive to and from Fond du Lac. But she noted that on some occasions she drove the car home because Fond du Lac was closer to the sites she was to visit the following day on official business.
Last week, Lautenschlager was arrested for drunken driving in Dodge County after she drove a state car into a ditch while on her way home from a Madison bar, where she had two glasses of wine after work, she told officers. She later pleaded guilty to the citation.
Lautenschlager's use of the car is now being investigated by the state Ethics Board.
Lautenschlager spokesman Brian Rieselman said she was not available for comment Thursday, the day she left for a long-planned vacation to Ireland.
Rothschild said he had been told by Paul Vornholt, a Justice Department division head and Lautenschlager appointee, that the attorney general believed her state vehicle "was available for personal use" without reimbursing state taxpayers.
State officials released copies of receipts Lautenschlager signed to pick up state-owned vehicles in which she acknowledged having "received and/or read" a copy of policies requiring that state workers reimburse taxpayers for miles spent commuting to work.
In the 12 years he was attorney general, Gov. Jim Doyle daily recorded the 8-mile round-trip to the Capitol from his Madison home, and then wrote a personal check to reimburse the state for that commute, said Sean Dilweg, executive assistant in the Department of Administration.
Doyle said Wednesday that Lautenschlager must decide whether she has made public enough details surrounding the Feb. 23-24 incident.
"This is ultimately a decision of whether her boss - the people of Wisconsin - think the standard she has set for herself is adequate," Doyle said.
In an interview Wednesday, Lautenschlager refused to discuss how many drinks she had the night she was arrested.
A roadside Breathalyzer test, which is not admissible in court, estimated her blood-alcohol content at 0.12 - above the 0.08 that is evidence of intoxication in Wisconsin. She refused to take a blood test.
A 140-pound woman would have to consume at least four drinks to reach that blood-alcohol level, and likely more because of the time that elapsed from the time Lautenschlager left Madison until she was arrested just after midnight, according to studies on alcohol consumption.
Doyle said the public "needs to have facts" to decide whether she held herself to a "higher standard" than other state employees who also were convicted of drunken driving while using an official vehicle.
"The public has to decide whether discipline she's imposed on herself is fair," he said. "I think the public needs to have facts to be able to make that judgment.
"She's the chief law enforcement officer of the state - she should hold herself to a higher standard than other state employees."
Doyle also said he didn't know whether Lautenschlager's offer to repay $3,250 of her salary - equal to 10 days of her net pay - was enough of a self-imposed penalty.
"Like everyone else, I don't know the facts to be able to compare it with other instances of state employees," Doyle said. "She's her own boss. She's made this decision, but I am not in any position to compare it to similar kinds of cases of state employees."
Meanwhile Thursday, Kari Kinnard, state executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said the organization has been inundated with phone calls and e-mails from people saying that Lautenschlager should resign. Kinnard said MADD won't call for the resignation itself because it's a non-profit, non-political organization.
"We're getting a lot of really basically nasty phone calls because people don't understand and they're very outraged over this," said Kinnard.
"This is just devastating. The number of victims we're hearing from (who are saying) how they feel betrayed and re-victimized."
Lautenschlager said she had not considered resigning.
If an attorney general resigns, state law says the governor would name her successor until a special election or the next regularly scheduled election, depending on the timing of the vacancy.
Kinnard said Lautenschlager's assertion that she had only two drinks the night of her arrest is a typical although frequently inaccurate response from those arrested for drunken driving.
"Everything shows us you do need more than two drinks to get to a 0.12" alcohol level, Kinnard said.
The Republican Party of Wisconsin on Thursday said Lautenschlager had not fully answered questions about her use of a state vehicle.
"The questions are numerous: Why on earth is her kitchen table the official headquarters of the Department of Justice of Wisconsin? Has she been using the state car for personal purposes? Has she used it as chair for the Howard Dean campaign?" said Darrin Schmitz, executive director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
"She's done so much bobbing and weaving on this issue, she makes Mike Tyson look like an amateur."
But Seth Boffeli, communications director for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said Lautenschlager has been forthcoming and cooperated with law enforcement authorities.
"She is not trying to hide anything here, but the Republicans want to create this false impression that she's hiding things . . . she has to answer to the people of Wisconsin, to the legal authorities who are investigating this, and she has," he said.
Anybody else caught drinking and driving in a state vehicle would have the vehicle taken away. No ifs, ands or buts.
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