After months of accusations by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and questions from local reporters, Gov. Scott McCallum proved last week that he repaid the state for a flight he took with his family to a governors’ conference.

McCallum wrote a check on March 7 for $3,420 to cover the cost of his family and his son’s girlfriend on the flight. But the following day, the governor’s staff said the check was also meant to cover the cost of having McCallum’s son fly to California for a biotechnology conference, to Colorado and then back to Madison.

The governor’s staff said Thursday McCallum’s family members were not on any other flights. But Friday, the Department of Administration said the check also covered family airfare for five additional round trips, some with multiple stops.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin said McCallum should not have used the state’s planes to transport his family, and after having done so, he should have repaid the state quickly.

Brian Hayes, a deputy secretary of the Department of Administration, detailed plane trips with McCallum’s family members in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Hayes said the governor’s check for $3,420 covered all of the flights and miscellaneous expenses but did not say how much each individual flight cost the state.

Hayes said McCallum’s son flew around the state and made several stops with his dad on Feb. 2, 2001, the day after McCallum became governor. He later flew with the governor on July 6, 2001 to La Crosse and Prairie du Chien.

McCallum’s younger son took trips on state planes from Green Bay to Madison on May 5, 2001 and from Madison to Green Bay and back on May 31, 2002.

Hayes also said McCallum flew from Madison to Fond du Lac to pick up his father and continued on to Green Bay for a Fourth of July event. His father was dropped off on the return flight.

But the Republican Party of Wisconsin said yesterday that Attorney General Jim Doyle used a state airplane on May 17 to meet with a donor and flew back to Madison for a fundraiser. Republican said that, according to State Elections Board records, Doyle also failed to reimburse the state for the flight.

The RPW also said they were still working on an investigation into whether Doyle used state Department of Justice staff members as campaign aides while they were working on state time.

“The record is clear and unequivocal — Jim Doyle has repeatedly wasted the taxpayer’s dime to further his partisan political ambitions,” RPW Chairman Rick Graber said. “Something tells me that won’t sit well with hard-working taxpayers who want their elected leaders to show some responsibility and restraint when spending the people’s money.”

Graber said Republicans have 37 instances of Doyle’s employees traveling with him outside of Madison to conduct campaign business without taking vacation time.

“This clearly is not a matter of just a few isolated incidents — this is a full-blown pattern of Jim Doyle violating the voters’ trust,” Graber said. “It seems our state’s ‘top cop’ was consumed with chasing campaign cash and skirting well-established election laws in the process.”

But Doyle Campaign director Bill Christofferson said the accusations are untrue.

“The Republican Party has no regard for the truth,” Christofferson said. “There’s only one thing wrong with today’s sensational charge — it’s not true.”

Christofferson said the Republicans “selectively pick a few facts, twist them around, jump to a lot of false conclusions and then make wild accusations. The trouble is, the charges are simply not true.”