Gov. Scott McCallum allowed campaign workers to illegally work on state time, the governor’s office admitted Wednesday.

McCallum’s office said that on Feb. 7, 2001, McCallum flew to Milwaukee with two aides who did not take time off from the campaign to attend the fundraising event.

Democratic Party of Wisconsin Communication Director Thad Nation said this is proof the governor’s office is poorly managed and also said this is evidence that taxpayers have paid for the governor’s staff to fly in the state airplane.

“The governor’s office needs to come clean about what happened,” he said. “McCallum’s office is guilty of the same problems they have accused Doyle of earlier.”

Nation said the governor’s office could account for some of the 25 instances where campaign employees have used the state’s airplanes for transportation.

“We have not seen an explanation for one of these instances,” he said. “[One] is listed as a political flight where staff didn’t take time off.”

The admittance comes after the Republican Party of Wisconsin chair Rick Graber accused attorney general Jim Doyle’s staff members of having staff members travel with him outside the state.

In a letter to The Capital Times, Graber said Democratic staff members were “traveling with Doyle outside of Madison, attended meetings ad functions that were clearly of a partisan political nature,” he said. “Even if one buys into that argument that staffers work well over the minimum 40 hours a week, and therefore conducting partisan political business using state-paid staff during regular weekdays is A-OK, we still have absolutely no proof to back up claims.”

Nation said it is important that this issue be investigated.

“Folks certainly need to take a look at this,” he said. “What is good for the goose is good for the gander.”

The governor’s office has refused to provide the Democratic Party with detailed schedules of McCallum and his campaign staff for the days when the flights were taken. The governor’s campaign reimbursed the state for the flights.

“Incredibly, McCallum’s spokesman claimed the schedules were ‘draft’ or ‘working’ documents, subject to change, and therefore not covered by the state Open Records Law,” Nation said. “A copy of the governor’s schedule from a year ago cannot be a draft document. Tomorrow’s schedule might be a working document subject to change, but yesterday’s is not unless you are erasing something.”

The Democratic Party plans on viewing their copies of McCallum’s schedule since he became governor.