HARRISBURG — There are no public records to account for tens of thousands of dollars that were paid out of a top state senator's campaign fund, and state officials do not view the expenditures as a violation, a newspaper reported.

The Times-Tribune of Scranton said Sunday that it counted 533 checks for more than $188,000 written to "cash" from Sen. Robert Mellow's campaign committee since Jan. 1, 2000.

No one wrote more than that many different checks to cash over that same period, the newspaper said. Pennsylvania's campaign finance law requires that campaign finance reports to the state include the date and recipient of each expenditure, along with their purpose.

However, state officials told the newspaper that they typically do not treat small individual payments as violations.

Mellow, from Lackawanna County, declined to tell the paper exactly how the money was spent. However, he said he has complied with the law.