Barbour trips: Expenses scrutinized

Barbour trips: Expenses scrutinized

Gov. Haley Barbour’s out-of-state trips are often to be commended, as they bring jobs and development to the state, but a close look at the tab last year does raise questions about fiscal restraint.

Barbour and his bodyguards racked up more than $300,000 in out-of-state travel expenses in 2010, according to documents obtained by The Clarion-Ledger.

Of note, one instance was the state paying for Barbour’s bodyguards to stay in $858-a-night hotel rooms during a trip to New York last June. In another instance, Mississippi taxpayers forked over more than $18,602 for Barbour’s trip to Las Vegas for a “project meeting” last March – a trip in which he hobnobbed with potential donors.

3/21/11
Clarion-Ledger