Witness: Pennsylvania taxpayers financed Vegas, Houston trips

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports:

The former director of the House Republican computer department testified today that taxpayers paid for his trips to Las Vegas and to the Super Bowl in Houston, even though the trips had a campaign and personal component.

Anthony Painter, the former information technology director, said former House Speaker John Perzel signed his state travel voucher for a computer symposium in Las Vegas in 2001 for $3,416 when he stayed at the MGM grand.

Painter called it a "combined legislative and campaign trip."

"Mine was reimbursed legislatively for the whole thing," Painter said.