Regardless of whether it's politicians or corporate CEOs, when it comes to spending other people's money, excess is all too common.

A recent audit of spending at the Community College of Allegheny County focused on expenses associated with 275 trips taken by administrators and board members. The audit also revealed that the former president of the college spent an average of $300 per meal while traveling on business. In addition, the audit revealed $11,500 spent to buy appliances and flooring for a college administrator.

While the CCAC audit is not particularly newsworthy, at least in Butler County, the spending practices detailed in the audit reveal common problems when it comes to spending other people's money.

The college initially refused to release its budget and spending records. But Allegheny County chief executive Dan Onorato ordered the budget released and the college administration decided, belatedly, to abide by the state's Right To Know Law.

Time and again, taxpayers see public officials spending taxpayers' money in ways that they would never spend their own.

Another recent example comes from state Rep. Mike Veon, D-Beaver Falls, who billed Pennsylvania taxpayers for $17,000 in airline tickets last year, mostly for flying to and from Harrisburg. It should be noted that Veon also leases, at taxpayer expense, a Jeep Grand Cherokee for $650 a month. So why can't he drive?

Some public officials, hopefully a majority, spend taxpayer dollars prudently, as if they were spending their own. But too many others seem to treat taxpayers' dollars as something like Monopoly money.

In Harrisburg, state lawmakers are free to distribute about $100 million of what has been called "Walking Around Money" for pet projects in their districts. Much of that spending remains undocumented and the members of the state legislature like it that way. It's the same attitude of entitlement and secrecy that characterized the controversial pay-raise vote of July 2005.

Why bother documenting discretionary spending of taxpayers' money? It's other people's money — and a nice perk for incumbents.

In the state House, spending records for lawmakers are kept secret. In the Senate, at least, the same spending records are available to the public.

Taxpayers have little recourse because Pennsylvania's public records law is of little use. In addition to being considered the weakest of its kind in the nation, the law specifically exempts the legislature.

A disdain for spending documentation in Harrisburg should not be surprising, considering that about half of the state's lawmakers chose to use unvouchered expenses to receive their share of the controversial pay raise approved at 2 a.m. on July 7, 2005. The lawmakers simply added the amount of extra money they would receive under the new pay rate to their expense reports. No documentation was provided, because none existed; their expenses had not increased by the amount claimed.

Again, it's a problem rooted in spending other people's money. How many of these lawmakers, if they were running their own business, would pay employees' expense reports without any documentation?

But when it involves taxpayers' money...no documentation, no problem.

In the corporate world, memorable examples of spending other people's money came a few years ago from L. Dennis Kozlowski, former CEOof Tyco International, who made headlines for his infamous $6,000 shower curtain and $5 million in renovations to the Manhattan condo that he had the company buy for him.

Other top executives at companies such as Enron and WorldCom were similarly lavish when spending other people's money.

People with the power to spend other people's money need to be reminded that it is not their money, and they should spend that money as carefully as if it were their own.