Despite efforts by the General Assembly to initially hide the cost, the AJC found that it cost taxpayers about $110,000. Among the expenses: The state paid for two Department of Public Safety officers to go on the trip as Duncan’s “executive security” protection.

After the AJC story ran, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, the Senate’s president, and Senate President Pro Tem John Kennedy called for an investigation into how taxpayers wound up paying for the trip.

On Wednesday they sent a memo reporting their findings to senators. The AJC obtained a copy of that report.

“Our concern upon first reading the AJC article and learning more about the activities of the study committee, including the European trip last November, has been to ensure that taxpayer dollars were appropriately accounted for and utilized with the utmost care,” the report said.

“While we believe there is a role for official travel by senators and staff, because of the expense involved, such travel must be clearly tied to pending or future legislative or policy business. Without such connection, travel, especially by outgoing members, has the appearance of nothing more than a taxpayer-funded vacation.”

The report said Miller, who lost to Jones in the May 2022 GOP primary for lieutenant governor, chaired a committee of Senate leaders that was supposed to approve any taxpayer-funded out-of-state travel. It said committee policy prohibited using Senate funds for international travel, and that limits were placed on how much could be spent on out-of-state travel that were exceeded by the European trip.

In fact, the expenses were never considered by the committee for approval in 2022, the report said.

“It is not clear to us why the payments and reimbursements were structured or sought in this manner, but we have concerns that the allocation of the expenses to the Senate administrative budget may have been done in order to avoid the restriction on approval of reimbursements for international travel,” the report said. “Thus, it is our belief that the expenses for this trip should not have been authorized.”

The report said changes should be made in how the chamber spends and accounts for the millions of dollars it receives in taxpayer funds.

The General Assembly has a budget this year of roughly $53 million, but it also has exempted itself from the Open Records Act, so it doesn’t have to disclose how it spends that money.

The report says that should change when it comes to out-of-state travel, at least by senators.

“Our first priority as leaders of the Senate is to promote government transparency and ensure that the funds entrusted to the Senate and the office of lieutenant governor by Georgia’s hardworking taxpayers are spent wisely and properly approved and accounted for,” it said.

The Senate leaders said as of April 1, all out-of-state travel expenses paid for using funds appropriated to the Senate and Jones’ office should be itemized and posted on the Senate’s website (https://www.legis.ga.gov/senate) at the end of each month. Jones and Kennedy said they would seek approval of the change at the next meeting of the chamber’s Administrative Affairs Committee.

They also want Senate rules changes to increase auditing of chamber spending and a ban on out-of-state travel within six months of a lieutenant governor or senator leaving office, or after they lose a primary election. Primaries are generally held in May.

“One of the more disheartening aspects of this matter is that the study committee’s European trip was led by the outgoing president and President Pro Tempore of the Senate during the final weeks of their terms of office, well after it was clear that neither would be returning to office in 2023,” the report said. “While both offices have duties to the Senate that require the attention of the officeholders until the conclusion of their respective terms of office, it is clear to us that their presence ... had little, if any, connection to those duties and did not clearly serve to advance any known educational, legislative, or economic development purpose.”

According to a report compiled by Duncan’s office and signed by Miller, the group met with government and business officials, toured company headquarters, studios, training schools and other facilities, and attended receptions.

Among the 14 people listed as attending, according to emails, were Duncan, Miller, states Sens. Clint Dixon, R-Buford, Emanuel Jones, D-Ellenwood, Sonya Halpern, D-Atlanta, and Sheikh Rahman, D-Lawrenceville, two members of Duncan’s security detail and Andrew Allison, the head of the Senate Press Office who left state government a little more than a month later for another job. Dixon, Jones, Halpern and Rahman all returned to the Senate this year.

Our reporting:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in February that Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller led a 14-person delegation on an economic development trip to Europe in November, just before they left office. After the AJC’s report, new Senate leaders called for an investigation into the trip. The AJC used Open Records Act requests and sourcing to find out how much the trip cost taxpayers after the General Assembly’s lawyers refused to disclose the information. On Wednesday, Senate leaders released the findings of their investigation into the trip.