SALEM - State election officials are investigating possible violations of campaign finance reporting laws by the co-chairman of the Oregon Legislature's budget-writing panel.

The inquiry centers on whether state Rep. Dan Doyle, R-Salem, diverted re-election campaign money to personal use, said Anne Martens, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Bill Bradbury.

It does appear Doyle violated another part of the law by the late filing of an amended campaign finance report, Martens said, although no financial penalty will be immediately imposed.

Doyle, who is co-chairman of the powerful Joint Ways and Means Committee, characterized the problems as technical in nature and said he did not put campaign money to personal use.

"There was no malicious intent here," he said. "I made some mistakes and I got them corrected when I found out about them."

The secretary of state began its inquiry after receiving complaints last Friday from two Salem residents about possible problems in reports filed in October by Doyle's re-election campaign.

One complaint cited Doyle's listing of payments of $6,345 and $2,900 to Comcast cable for television advertising - even though no Doyle ads ran on Comcast.

In response, Doyle filed amended campaign reports last Friday deleting the payments.

On Monday, the Salem Republican said in the last weeks of the campaign, he decided to not run the ads even though he had already written the checks to purchase air time. "The problem was in not reconciling that decision with the contribution expenditure report," he said.

Asked what had become of the combined $9,245 that earlier had been earmarked for Comcast, Doyle said the money "is just sitting in my campaign account."

The other complaint questioned the existence of another company listed on Doyle's report as having received $20,000 from the Salem lawmaker.

Doyle initially listed the company as Redcell Inc. But in his amended report filed last Friday, he changed the name to Redcell Enterprises and said the company had provided consulting services to his campaign. Martens, Bradbury's spokeswoman, said Doyle faces a $3,800 fine for the late filing of his amended finance report.

She said the secretary of state won't impose the fine immediately, however, because lawmakers have immunity under state law from being fined for campaign law violations while the Legislature is in session.

At the same time, Bradbury's office is free to continue investigating the case while the Legislature is in session, she said.

"Our concern is that he is honest and accurate about where his campaign money is going," Martens said.