State Official’s Travel Costs Questioned : Legislature: Hearing on reappointment to waste management board is held up after it is learned that Santa Barbara man billed taxpayers for commuting to work in Sacramento.

Acting to head off potential embarrassment, assistants to Gov. Pete Wilson on Wednesday abruptly delayed a Senate confirmation hearing for an official who has billed taxpayers for commuting to work in Sacramento.

The postponement of the hearing for Paul M. Relis, a Santa Barbara environmentalist up for reappointment by Wilson to the Integrated Waste Management Board, came only a few hours before he was to appear before the Senate Rules Committee.

Expense reports filed by Relis, a Democrat, indicated that during the past two years he had billed taxpayers for more than $25,000 in air fares and other expenses as he commuted between his home in Santa Barbara and his full-time, $93,403-a-year job in Sacramento. The practice, while not illegal, is clearly out of bounds and will no longer be tolerated, said the governor’s chief spokesman, Dan Schnur.

Relis has maintained that he merely took advantage of a longstanding policy that allows state officials to establish their own “headquarters” outside Sacramento and be reimbursed for travel, lodging and food when they are away on business.

Schnur called the actions “clearly an inappropriate use of taxpayer money.”

He said the governor’s office in the last few days had ordered a tightening of state policy that gives state boards, commissions and other agencies regulatory authority over reimbursing the necessary travel expenses of employees who must commute to work. “The regulation changes were ordered on a fast track,” he said.

Schnur said the Administration wants to “change the policy so that a public servant whose primary place of business is Sacramento should not be able to take advantage” of travel reimbursement regulations intended for employees whose work site headquarters are elsewhere.

Relis said in a statement, “If the current policy changes, I’ll abide by whatever new directive results.”

Records indicate that during the past two years, Relis billed the state for nearly $19,000 for air travel, much of it between Santa Barbara and Sacramento. He also established a “headquarters” in Santa Barbara and spent about $28,000 last year on rent and related expenses, records indicate.

Schnur indicated that Wilson stands behind Relis as an appointee to the waste board.

Asked about reports that other appointees to boards and commissions may also have established their own hometown “headquarters” and billed taxpayers for travel in the performance of their duties, Schnur said, “There are other similar cases as well.”

He refused to estimate how many offenders might be involved, but sources have said that at least half a dozen appointees have claimed similar expenses.