Creative Oral Accounting

Luxury trips paid by a nonprofit are itemized vaguely, records show. Schwarzenegger's aides say the practice is legal.

What is legal and what is right are two different to things. This does not pass the smell test. Note that by vaguely they mean Arnold's staff has been telling each other by word of mouth what was spent. Plus they have scribbled a few things down and locked them in a drawer.

I kid you not. LAT:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office has avoided fully disclosing payments of $1.7 million in nonprofit funds for private jets, hotel suites and support staff for his trips overseas, according to state documents and interviews.

Record-keeping for many of the governor's luxury-class jaunts has been by word of mouth. Asked how the staff tracks the costs, subject to public disclosure laws, Schwarzenegger attorney Daniel Maguire said: "Orally."

I go back to the subheadline at the top. How the heck is this legal?

In late 2004, the multimillionaire governor stopped reporting the travel expenses on state disclosure forms that itemize gifts to elected officials. Instead, Schwarzenegger's top aides recorded some of the costs -- and made only general references to others -- in memos they wrote to themselves and filed away in the governor's legal affairs office.

Several of the memos did not include dollar amounts, even though regulations under the state Political Reform Act require that such figures be disclosed in a written public record within 30 days of payment. After The Times asked for those amounts -- some missing since 2004 -- the governor's office took more than two months to produce them.

Schwarzenegger has frequently called for more transparency -- what he calls the "antiseptic of sunshine" -- in state government. But nonprofit watchdogs and open-government advocates called his aides' handling of the travel costs deceptive, a way to thwart scrutiny of the lavish spending by the tax-exempt charity that foots the bill.

Say one thing and do another. That is the governor's motto. In this case it is say one thing then fly a private jet around the world and document it by having your staff chat about it and write a vague memo and file it away.