The alleged payment of generous year-end bonuses to state House and Senate legislative staffers in late 2006 involved $3.6 million in taxpayer funds. Now, as the investigations into those allegations proceed and legal defense efforts are launched, taxpayers are picking up the tab — again.

While payments to staffers for both parties in both the House and Senate are being scrutinized, the primary focus has been on House Democrats, where the $1.9 million in year-end bonuses was most egregious and dwarfed the other caucuses. Year-end bonuses paid by House Democrats to 717 staffers appear highly correlated to political and campaign work done in legislative elections in which Democrats regained a majority in the House.

The bonuses paid by Democratic leaders ranged from a few hundred dollars to about $20,000.

Using taxpayers' funds to pay for political or campaign work is prohibited by law. Those expenses are to be paid by campaign donations, not taxes.

In response to the allegations and subsequent investigations, House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, D-Greene, months ago hired a consultant who was a former prosecutor and worked as a top aide to former Govs. Robert P. CaseySr. and Tom Ridge.

The consultant hired by DeWeese is charging $55,000 a month and justifies the costs by explaining that "tens of millions" of e-mails and other records have to be examined as part of the response to subpoenas from the grand jury investigation launched by Attorney General Tom Corbett early last year.

Other lawyers have been hired by DeWeese to work on matters related to year-end bonus payments and other political campaign activities.

Overall, the Harrisburg ethical scandal known as Bonusgate has cost taxpayers about $1 million, according to a report published in the Philadelphia Inquirer. With the investigation continuing and indictments likely to follow, the taxpayers' tab for legal defenses in Harrisburg is sure to grow.

When told of the $1 million-and-growing legal defense bill, Tim Potts, co-founder of Democracy Rising PA, said, "This is proving the cost of corruption. It costs you up front and in the back and all the way through."

Potts is the current head of the good-government, pro-reform group, and had worked as press secretary for DeWeese in the 1990s.

DeWeese has paid, according to the Inquirer, more than $710,000 in the past year to the lead Washington consultant helping with "ethics" issues. In addition, DeWeese has spent another $600,000 out of his legislative leadership account, otherwise known as his slush fund, to other firms for legal work related to Bonusgate.

Taxpayers need to stay tuned to see how Bonusgate plays out. But what already appears clear is that the same sense of entitlement, arrogance and disrespect for taxpayers and the law that was seen in the notorious 2 a.m. pay-raise vote in 2005 was also evident as party leaders used taxpayers' money to pay for campaign efforts. And now, they are spending more taxpayer money to pay for their legal defenses.

Bonusgate, as well as the liberal use of legislative slush funds, should spark a round of voter outrage to match the outcry over the controversial middle-of-the-night pay-raise vote. And that, in turn, should lead to the ouster of more incumbents from their Harrisburg jobs, bringing to the General Assembly new lawmakers with more respect for voters, taxpayers and the law.