RALEIGH (AP) - Gov. Mike Easley on Tuesday defended overseas cultural exchange trips led by his wife that cost taxpayers $109,000, saying such visits can reap exponentially larger monetary rewards for the state with art exhibits.

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The Democrat also said the weak exchange rate for the U.S. dollar in Europe made the trips he and his wife have taken more expensive.

“I wish it didn't cost that much,” Easley told reporters, but “it cost what it costs.”

Mary Easley, an executive assistant and a Highway Patrol trooper traveled to France in May 2007, while the first lady and state arts leaders also went to Russia and Estonia in May this year.

For the France trip, taxpayers paid more than $27,000 for the chauffeured Mercedes sport utility vehicle that Mary Easley used, according to The News & Observer of Raleigh, which first reported on the expenses.

Another $8,900 was paid to the first lady, the assistant and a state highway patrol trooper, who provided security, to stay in a hotel and participate in a Monet-themed tour.

For the Estonia and Russian trip, business-class airfare for five people traveling cost more than $34,000, the newspaper reported. In St. Petersburg, Russia, the group stayed in an $800-a-night hotel and had ballet tickets that cost about $1,100.

At a news conference announcing a home-foreclosure prevention initiative, Easley said itineraries and traveling decisions are determined by other state agencies, including the Department of Cultural Resources and Department of Commerce.

“I don't pick out the menus. I don't decide the venues,” Easley said. And he said Mercedes are more commonplace in Europe.

“If you go overseas, that's what you see. You don't get off the plane in Rome and tell them you want a Crown (Victoria),” he said. “It's not something that either her or I have anything to say about or do with.”

The traveling party to Russia and Estonia included Mary Easley, North Carolina Museum of Art Director Larry Wheeler and Libba Evans, secretary of the Department of Cultural Resources. Wheeler told The News & Observer that the trip could lead to a loan of exhibits from those two countries in the future, including The Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

“If we can get a show from The Hermitage, that would be worth a lot of money as well as just for the value of North Carolina,” Easley said.

Similar cultural exchanges and networks have helped bring in works of art to the museum, including works by Auguste Rodin, according to Easley. A Claude Monet exhibit at the museum in late 2006 - several months before Mary Easley's visit to France - brought in $24 million to Wake County alone, he said.

A taxpayer-funded trip to Italy taken by the Easleys, state commerce officials and others in April cost more than $170,000. Easley said the trip was designed to attract Italian residents and companies to come to North Carolina.

The state's travel policy, covering both elected and appointed officials, prohibits luxury accommodations “for the convenience or personal preference of the employee in the performance of official state business.”

State Republican leaders jumped on the recently disclosed trips. GOP chairwoman Linda Daves said the Easleys are again “lavishly spending taxpayer money on vacations overseas.”

“I think we all agree that a certain amount of cultural exchange ... is an appropriate thing,” said Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, but “the average person that's out there, standing by the gas pump paying $4, $4.15 per gallon ... just is not very well served by our leadership in those kinds of decisions.”