Pennsylvania residents are rightly angry over the big pay raises that state lawmakers approved for themselves, judges and other state officials.

But the abuse of taxpayers' money extends beyond that arrogance and wasteful spending. It's time for taxpayers to also direct their attention to - and voice their disgust about - expensive taxpayer-financed conferences at luxury resorts.

The state's taxpayers have paid out more than $825,000 since January 2001 for employees from 13 state agencies to attend retreats and seminars at such locations, according to research conducted by the Harrisburg Patriot-News.

That money amounts to a pittance within the scope of overall state spending; no one would argue that point. But $825,000 could do considerable good in helping a few struggling public libraries or other smaller-scale worthwhile cause.

A policy should be implemented whereby luxury conference accommodations are deemed out of bounds. There are plenty of non-luxury locations where conferences and educational programs can be held without sacrificing the quality of the programs.

The Harrisburg newspaper requested records from the state Treasury from January 2001 to the present for the Hotel Hershey, Skytop Lodge in the Poconos, Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Fayette County, The Homestead in Hot Springs, Va., and The Greenbrier in White Sulfur Springs, W.Va.

That segment of its research turned up spending totaling $502,620. The paper previously had reported that the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency spent an additional $323,101 at three of the resorts.

If private companies want to send their employees to luxury resorts for seminars and conferences, that's their business. They can recoup the cost through the products and services that they sell. If the users of those products and services don't like the prices, they can refuse to buy them.

Pennsylvania taxpayers don't have that option in regard to state officials' actions. They must pay for whatever officials decide, whether the spending is frugal or excessive.

In this instance, they have been handed more than $800,000 in bills for getaways that, in fact, were unnecessary.

"Pennsylvanians do have a reasonable expectation, since this is their tax dollars, for public officials to be wise custodians of our money," said Barry Kauffman, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania.

"I think whenever anybody has looked into waste or abuse of the public treasury . . . it's really no wonder that Pennsylvanians have seen their taxes go up 10 percent while spending has grown over 18 percent in just the last three years," said Matt Brouillette, president of the Harrisburg-based Commonwealth Foundation, which works on behalf of limiting government spending.

The one positive aspect of the legislative pay raises approved in July is that they have caused angry taxpayers to pay attention to other wasteful practices that are draining their tax dollars. While not letting-up on their criticism of lawmakers for their pay-raise action, they should demand that conference waste be halted - permanently.