The state has had a travel ban in place for many government agencies since May 6, 2008, when Gov. M. Jodi Rell ordered a halt to all excursions unless a trip is "paid for out of non-state funds."

But there have been exceptions to the travel ban from the start -- for judicial and criminal justice programs, for instance, and for higher education institutions -- and there have been other areas in which, press releases aside, no governor can simply shut off a state agency's ability to buy a plane ticket.

So, yes, there's a travel ban in place, but it doesn't mean that cutting off state spending is ever quite that easy in Connecticut, and it doesn't mean that taxpayers haven't been paying for state travel.

Take the following data from CTSunlight.org, the database set up by the nonpartisan Yankee Institute to show what the state has been spending. In fiscal 2009 alone, the state paid for at least 1,000 hotel rooms in that period, at a cost of more than $600,000, the Institute found, based on figures obtained from the office of state comptroller Nancy Wyman.

That includes 101 room rentals in Florida, and others scattered all around the country and the world. And keep in mind these numbers are for room rentals -- it doesn't count the cost of airfare, car rental or anything the lucky voyagers might have spent or bought in the course of their travels.

"We're disappointed to find out that a supposed travel ban doesn't mean what we thought it meant," said the Institute's executive director, Fergus Cullen. "In this recession, families and businesses have cut back and tens of thousands of private sector jobs have been lost, but state government just keeps spending."

Some of the travel seems easier to defend than the rest.

The Division of Criminal Justice, for instance, racked up nearly $51,000 in hotel room fees in FY 09, including in sought after destinations like Romulus, Michigan, and Beckley, West Virginia.

But a spokesman noted that the agency had a good reason: those are "costs associated with extraditions and investigations, primarily extraditions," said the spokesman, Mark Dupuis. "We not only pay for extraditions carried out by our own Inspectors but in some instances when a local police department extradites the prisoner; we pay the necessary expenses. Other hotel costs would include accommodations for witnesses such as those brought in to testify and who must stay overnight."

The division did not charge rooms for conventions or conferences while the travel ban was in place, he said.

The Department of Children and Families racked up more than $228,000 in hotel bills -- including a trip to Lagos, Nigeria -- but that agency is required by state statute to make in-person site visits to clients held in out-of-state programs every two weeks.

In an e-mail, DCF spokesman Gary Kleeblatt said the agency's 2009 hotel expenses "were from activities tied to our case management responsibilities with individual children."

Gov. M. Jodi Rell's office provided a statement that alluded to those responsibilities while saying she still hopes to reduce the costs of such mandated travel.

"These travel costs are excessive – especially at a time when we are doing everything we can to reduce state spending. Obviously, the core responsibilities of DCF necessitate some travel to care for children," Rell said in a comment provided by her staff. "But these costs seem to be too high and must be reduced. I have asked the Department of Administrative Services to work with DCF to review the agency's travel policies to ensure all trips are appropriate and cost-effective."

But the governor's office did not respond to a request for comment on some of the other hotel expenses her administration has charged.

They include more than $6,000 in hotel rooms for the Commission on Culture and Tourism in, among others, New Orleans, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Chatanooga, Tennessee.

The Department of Revenue Services -- that would be the agency that collects the taxes you pay and audits the amount that you might not have -- spent more than $147,000 on hotel rooms from Seattle to Freeport, Maine, from La Jolla, California to the Hilton Clearwater Beach in Clearwater, Florida.

(That last one cost $904.83, the data shows, though if they were there to cheer on a certain baseball team, I think both the speaker of the house and I will be willing to overlook it.)

The Yankee Institute's good work has made a lot of things clear -- especially if you're a state employee wondering what your deskmate is pulling down a year -- but it has also revealed just how difficult it can be to parse out which investments are not the luxuries they seem, even in lean years. You'd better believe the Department of Economic and Community Devleopment thinks its trip to an air show in London was good for the state's aviation industry concerns, even if it also meant a $1,719 hotel charge. Many agencies that are doing such work are also trying to offset such expenses with grants from entities outside government.

But more than anything, all this data highlights the ridiculousness of any partisan lecturing any other within the halls of our state government about unseriousness in pursuit of true fiscal austerity.

Ask Democratic and Republican legislators alike about the $1.5 million the General Assembly spent last year to send you mail describing all the important work they were doing.

Ask Rell about, well, pick one. How did the $770.56 the Department of Agriculture spent last year on a room at the Caribe Royale Resorts in Orlando help Connecticut balance its budget, or save its farms?