In a perfect world, repayment of the money involved in the Pennsylvania General Assembly's Bonusgate scandal would have to come from lawmakers who doled out the money illegally — at this time believed to be about $3 million — from their own private funds, as a means of restitution to the taxpayers.

After all, they violated the public trust, which demanded that they spend taxpayer dollars only within the confines of the law, and in a way that served taxpayers' best interests, not their own.

However, that method of repayment seems unlikely since there are other ways for the state to recoup the money in question. One of those means of collection won't be to require the recipients of the bonuses to pay back the funds.

In regard to the state employees who received the bonuses, most of the money probably has been spent. Even in instances where it hasn't been spent, there's a gray area in terms of whether, or which, state employees who were paid bonuses understood from the start that their extra compensation was wrong.

Even those workers who might have realized that the bonuses were illegal under state law, and that they couldn't be paid with state funds for campaign work done during their regular work hours — and that accepting such compensation could come back to haunt them — they found themselves in a quandary over whether, by refusing their bonuses or other ineligible pay, they might offend their boss and jeopardize at least their promotion prospects, if not their employment.

Loyalty was expected of them. They performed the political and campaign work in line with that loyalty, and their bosses, the legislators, intended for them to reap some benefit from that loyalty — based, presumably, on the amount and success of their performance.

As for the lawmakers involved in the scandal, their decision was easy. They were spending other people's money, the taxpayers' money, and they brazenly ignored the fact that what they were doing was illegal.

Still, it's unlikely that the individual lawmakers will, in the end, be responsible for repayment. A more likely scenario is that the money will come from campaign or legislative caucus funds — or from the General Assembly's big surplus fund.

Granted, the repayment money from sources other than campaign funds contributed by supporters would most likely be taxpayers' money. However, repayment would remove that money from lawmakers' control, directly impacting the General Assembly.

The arrogance of legislative leaders, which has been revealed so often since the controversial pay-raise vote of July 2005, reared its ugly head again in Bonusgate. How deep the scandal will extend remains to be seen and, while House Democrats seem to be the biggest culprits at this point, there isn't any guarantee that no Republicans will be implicated by the time the investigation runs its course.

Bonusgate is another sad chapter in the General Assembly's history. Attorney General Tom Corbett and his investigators should continue their probe — no matter what directions it might take.

Even if the repayment of the $3 million — or more — in question doesn't come directly from lawmakers' own funds or from those who received the payments, the state's coffers must in some way be reimbursed.

Anything less would just add insult to injury.