It isn’t often the Republican majority and Democratic minority in the Georgia Senate see eye to eye these days.
But they have found common ground in the call by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and Senate President Pro Tem John Kennedy to investigate how taxpayers wound up paying for a European trip for their predecessors two months before they left office. And on the need for more fiscal transparency on such trips.
“I think when taxpayer dollars are spent, there should be a level of transparency and accountability to the public for those expenditures,” said Senate Minority Caucus Chairwoman Elena Parent, D-Atlanta. “The public deserves to know how much was spent and what it was spent on.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Sunday that just before their terms ended, then-Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller led a 14-person delegation to Germany and England.
Duncan didn’t run for reelection, and Miller lost in the Republican lieutenant governor’s primary to Jones. By the time the mid-November trip took place, voters had already selected their replacements.
Legislative lawyers rejected requests from the AJC to disclose how much state money was spent on the trip, citing the fact that the General Assembly exempted itself from the Open Records Act that other government officials must follow.
The group — which included two state-funded security staffers and other taxpayer-funded employees — made the trip Nov. 12-19 to the German cities of Munich and Stuttgart and then London as part of a Senate Study Committee on Economic Development and International Relations. The legislation creating the committee was filed and passed by the Georgia Senate at the end of the 2022 session, and the panel was chaired by Miller.
“The recent AJC article about last fall’s study committee raises serious concerns about the use and purpose of Senate administrative funds in paying for travel expenses associated with this study committee,” Jones and Kennedy said in a joint statement late Monday.
“We are taking this issue very seriously and our offices will investigate this process and ensure the most transparency for hardworking Georgians,” they said.
Some Democrats in the Senate quickly backed Jones and Kennedy’s move.
Sen. Josh McLaurin, D-Sandy Springs, tweeted: “Here’s something I agree with the current Senate Republican leadership about. Voters want to ensure that we aren’t using this job to enrich ourselves.”
One of the lawmakers on the trip, Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Ellenwood, told the AJC last week that he supported releasing the information.
The General Assembly has a taxpayer-funded budget this year of roughly $53 million.
Late in the 2022 session, the Senate added $80,000 to the lieutenant governor’s office budget and $686,000 to the Georgia Senate budget, calling it an increase “for legislative operations,” according to Senate budget tracking sheets. No further explanation was provided.
Kennedy, a Republican from Macon, was a member of the Senate leadership team at the time.
For the report Sunday, the AJC reviewed 1,300 pages of emails received through an Open Records Act request from the Department of Economic Development. The documents showed the trip was in the works for months, with emails repeatedly going back and forth between Duncan’s staffers and those helping to facilitate the effort in Germany and the United Kingdom, including state of Georgia economic development officials in those countries.
A review of emails and schedules suggests transportation for the group alone almost certainly cost tens of thousands of dollars.
According to a report compiled by Duncan’s office and signed by Miller, the group met with government and business officials, toured company headquarters, studios, training schools and other facilities, and attended receptions.
Among the 14 people listed as attending, according to emails, were Duncan, Miller, Jones, state Sens. Clint Dixon, R-Buford, Sonya Halpern, D-Atlanta, and Sheikh Rahman, D-Lawrenceville, two members of Duncan’s security detail and Andrew Allison, the head of the Senate Press Office who left state government a little more than a month later for another job. Dixon, Jones, Halpern and Rahman all returned to the Senate this year.
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