From Anchorage Daily News -


State funded Palin kids’ travel
$21,012: Reports later changed to say hotels, 76 airfares for her girls
were official business.

By BRETT BLACKLEDGE, ADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZO
The Associated Press

(10/22/08 04:15:02)

Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her,
including to events where they were not invited, and later amended
expense reports to specify that they were on official business.

The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three
daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and
a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference
and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a
luxury hotel.

In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters’ 64
one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in
December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel
rooms for the girls.

Alaska law does not specifically address expenses for a governor’s
children. The law allows for payment of expenses for anyone conducting
official state business.

As governor, Palin justified having the state pay for the travel of her
daughters — Bristol, 17; Willow, 14; and Piper, 7 — by noting on travel
forms that the girls had been invited to attend or participate in events
on the governor’s schedule.

But some organizers of these events said they were surprised when the
Palin children showed up uninvited, or said they agreed to a request by
the governor to allow the children to attend.

Several other organizers said the children merely accompanied their
mother and did not participate. The trips enabled Palin, whose main
state office is in the capital of Juneau, to spend more time with her
children.