In the weeks after Governor Doyle's administration ordered state employees to curb unnecessary travel, those same workers charged the state more than $900,000 for hundreds of trips around the world.

Records obtained by The Associated Press show that Wisconsin state employees visited at least 30 states and the District of Columbia and eight foreign countries in more than 300 trips taken just the first three months of the year.

The amount spent on travel and the number of places visited actually is much greater than the reports show since the University of Wisconsin System submitted an incomplete report.

The system accounted for nearly 90 percent of the out-of-state travel last fiscal year.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)