When Pennsylvania state Rep. Thomas Caltagirone was accused of harassing a staff member, the Legislature settled the matter outside of court. The state's insurance paid out $250,000 in 2015, and no one said a word — even during the next year’s elections when Caltagirone retained his seat.

Right, Emily Martin, general counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, a nonprofit that provides legal defense for victims of harassment

This secret settlement is one of many involving state lawmakers or legislative aides that have been exposed in the last few months, as a wave of sexual misconduct allegations has flooded the country. And in state after state, the allegations of wrongdoing quietly went away after victims received payouts from public funds.

The revelation that legislatures frequently use taxpayer money to protect lawmakers and staff accused of harassment or assault has sparked outrage and prompted reporters to try to tally up the bill.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette exposed Caltagirone’s settlement in December. California newspapers this month revealed that the state Legislature has spent $290,000 on settling harassment-related claims since 2006. The Detroit News last month revealed that the Michigan Senate spent $269,000 to investigate and settle sexual harassment claims from 2000 to 2007.

And the Wisconsin State Journal in December revealed that the state Legislature in 2015 spent $75,000 to settle a claim against a state senator who was accused by a former aide of talking about her breasts and making other sexual comments. The accused — Democrat Spencer Coggs — is now treasurer for the city of Milwaukee.

Lawmakers in at least five states — California, Illinois, Iowa, New York and Pennsylvania — have proposed banning the use of public dollars for settlements or payouts related to sexual harassment allegations against state lawmakers.

Advocates for taxpayers, such as Pete Sepp, president of the nonprofit National Taxpayers Union, say lawmakers need to be held responsible for their actions.

"They are supposed to be answerable to the people who pay the bills," Sepp said, "and those people are saying right now that this situation is untenable."

But some employment lawyers, such as David Yamada, a law professor and director of the New Workplace Institute at Suffolk University in Boston, say the issue is more complicated than it seems.

Holding individual lawmakers, and not the government, responsible for sexual harassment may lessen the incentive for legislatures to offer sexual harassment training and to police their own, Yamada said. And, because some lawmakers may not be able to come up with the money for a settlement, it also may make it less likely that the victim will receive compensation for her claim.

"There are better ways to spend public money than to have to spend it to atone for the misdeeds of public servants," Yamada said. But, he said, "We have to hold public employers liable."

Legislatures are often on the hook for the bad behavior of lawmakers because, like other employers, they are responsible under the Civil Rights Act for creating a workplace that is free from harassment and discrimination. Employers that don’t attempt to prevent harassment — and report and investigate claims when they arise — can be held liable.

It's part of an employer's job to prevent a toxic culture, said Emily Martin, general counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, a nonprofit that provides legal defense for victims of harassment. But Martin said the bills raise an important question about why the state is paying for the transgressions of lawmakers, who do not have a traditional employer-employee relationship.

Lawmakers don’t really have managers, other than the public, she said. “In order to really hold that legislator accountable, maybe it makes sense to have them pay for it.”

The effort to hunt down secret settlements involving state lawmakers began in November after reporters revealed recent cases in which taxpayer money was used to settle sexual harassment claims against members of Congress, including payouts related to accusations against Democratic Reps. Alcee Hastings of Florida ($220,000) and John Conyers of Michigan ($27,000), and against Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas ($84,000). Congress is considering a bipartisan bill, like the state bills, that would bar the use of taxpayer money to settle harassment claims.

It’s hard for the public to find out about settlements agreed to by state legislatures, and even when the payments are made public, the details of the allegations usually are not. In some states, legislatures aren’t subject to public records laws, and in other states, officials say the law doesn’t apply to these records. It’s also hard to know what records to ask for — sometimes the settlements are paid by state insurance, sometimes by the legislatures’ administrative offices, and sometimes by individual party caucuses.